[ Thanks to Samuel Painter for this
link. ]
“Suppose that you have been using GNU/Linux for a
number of months now. You had previously been using Windows or Mac
OS X, but heard about the freedom, openness, and performance
inherent to open source operating systems. More likely than not,
you picked up an Ubuntu live CD (or one of numerous other new-user
friendly distributions) and gave it a test run. If your case is
anything like mine was, you found that this operating system ran
faster off of a CD than your current operating system ran while
installed! So you decided to install this “Linux” thing and worked
through whatever bugs or trouble you may have encountered. That was
it, you were sold!“Now with a free and open system you were not just an end user
for a large monopolistic cooperation, you were a member of the
thriving Free Software/Open Source Community. With documentation
and supportive communities abounding, the possibilities seemed
endless. Were you confused at first when you couldn’t play flash
videos from YouTube or your mp3 music collection wouldn’t play? If
so, it probably did not take you long to find a how-to article, or
a wiki page explaining how to fix your media woes. A quick trip to
your distribution’s package manager was probably all that was
needed to get things working.”