Linux Solutions

One small town in the US has started an anti-Windows revolution that comes hot off the heels of Independence Day: the cunningly titled, “Lindependece Day”.

On July 28th “a significant percentage” of the town of Felton, Calif, declared independence form Microsoft’s strangle hold on the world, and are going Redmond-free “for one week…maybe an entire month.” But, its organisers say, “If things go right, we can start talking about forever.”

It’s quite outstanding that the world’s media didn’t pick this up. Lindependence Day was preceded by three weeks of “installfests” to give Felton residents a chance to look at the other options provided by Linux-based systems. LiveCDs and bootable thumb drives – “dual booting for the more daring residents” – were among the technologies covered.

Representatives from distros and FOSS (free open source software) programs were there to answer questions and give tutorials on how to use the software, with support from Mandriva, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, AntiX, Wolvix, OpenOffice.org and CodeWeavers.

No word yet on how many of Felton’s 6,000 or so residents participated, but “I expect that most of the people who participate in this project will continue to stay ‘proprietary free’ after the week is over, because they will discover what we already know: Linux, FOSS and the freedom to choose in our digital pursuits far outweigh the digital hegemony provided by the digital mandarins in Redmond and Cupertino,” wrote Larry Cafiero of HeliOS Solutions West, one of the project’s organizers, on the Ubuntu Forums.

Briliantly the trend seems to be spreading, with reports that similar initiatives are coming in Boulder Creek, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Taos, N.M.; and even Italy, where 100 towns will participate, according to a Lindependence blog.

“The Lindependence events are a good thing since they help overcome one of Microsoft’s biggest advantages: inertia,” Gerhard Mack, a Montreal-based consultant and Slashdot blogger, said

“If not for the event, people would just continue using Microsoft products because that’s what they have always been using, and they would be afraid to try something new on their own,” Mack said