For sheer amusement value, I will sometimes peruse some of the content and comments at The Linux Hater's Blog. Not because I totally agree with everything that's said there--I'd say it's rare that anything truly enlightening manages to filter its way through the sludge and drivel--but because it dramatically personifies one of the larger, overarching disputes surrounding the use of technology in general. While opponents of Linux as a desktop platform continually point out its flaws--and there are admittedly many--it still begs the question of just how much control any one technology vendor should have on global markets. I think the mistake the Linux Haters make is to forget that the effects of technology use--political, social, security--stretch far beyond the doors of their homes and offices.

If the problem was just consumer-related, meaning that Microsoft's 90 percent market share was only related to individual, personal use and productivity, then the Linux Hater's Blog is right--the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) movement is essentially a non-entity, an unnecessary, possibly even wasteful use of time and money that could be better put towards more productive, socially relevant technological causes. But the very second a Microsoft product is used to house any type of sensitive business or political data--especially personally identifiable data--then the use of that Microsoft product is no longer simply an individual consumer concern. In the United States, the second a business server with sensitive data goes online, then the government must necessarily have some form of involvement. The Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Consumer Advocacy, the Social Security Department . . . all of these agencies (and more) have a direct interest, and more importantly a legal obligation to ensure within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution that the citizens of the United States are not having their fundamental rights of privacy, security, and property violated, damaged, or impinged by a company's use of that data.

If it was just about "making my iPod work," or "surfing YouTube with a faster Flash codec," or "having the best C programming environment around," then nobody would think twice about which operating system and software they used. Windows works, we pay the money for a Windows license, end of story.

But in the evolving global economy--an economy where barely 17 percent of the world's total citizens even have Internet access of any kind whatsoever, a world where 80 percent of the world's wealth resides in approximately two dozen countries, a world where government policy enacted in the United States can have profound economic and social impacts on people who have not and will not ever set foot on U.S. soil during their entire lives, the picture changes.

In this perspective, "freedom" isn't just about "free beer" (a free operating system). It's not just about having the best MP3 app, or the best killer 3D rendering engine. It's not about having a sexy, easy-to-use software development environment.

Claiming that Linux as a desktop system has no merit whatsoever is simply short-sighted imperialism. Yes, as a personal choice for many consumers, it's not a viable piece of software. Yes, it may not suit your individual, highly localized, narrowly finite needs, and that's fine. By all means, Linux Haters, continue to claim that Linux is lacking as a real alternative to Microsoft operating system products, because in this narrow sense, your claims are certainly true.

But in your zeal to decry the "brainwashed masses" who spew forth their GPL-software dogma, never discount the simple fact that information technology and its uses is intrinsically and inevitably tied to political and economic power structures. You can debate just how much the two are tied together, you can debate the ultimate impacts of that correlation, but you cannot in any rational, lucid fashion deny that such a connection exists.

And in that context, you must also admit that on some level, no matter how seemingly small from your perspective, that a world-wide technology system that depends so heavily on one, single, central vendor might be cause for concern. From a security, political stability, and financial standpoint, a completely unfettered Microsoft on a world-wide technology scale isn't healthy, and is potentially dangerous. It's not much of a stretch to claim that if the 9/11 attacks had destroyed the Microsoft Redmond campus rather than the World Trade Center that the long-term effects would have been far more damaging.

So by all means, keep hating on Linux for its failures. But don't ignore the fact that to a poor, starving Uruguayan, Lebanese, or Sri Lankan aspiring technologist, Linux just might mean a whole lot more than "just making stuff work." It might mean freedom--real freedom.