Free Geek is proud to use Free and Open Source Software. Here are some thoughts on Linux and why we use it.

Industry standards of today for computer operating systems have lowered their "expectations" of reliable, stable environments in lieu of "easier" manageable system which can be run by anyone. Although this seems agreeable and understandable in principle, its methodology and approach to accomplish this goal has made computing suffer.

When you get into your automobile to go from point A to point B, you don't EXPECT to stall every so often when you go out. You EXPECT it to function, and, with maintenance and repairs, you expect it to last a very long time. Knowing that, how can one expect anything less from their computer operating system??? One should not HAVE to reboot to clear memory, do garbage collection on strangling pointers and kill frozen, or misguided processes. Yet we do every day. By purchasing operating systems and "living" with the consequences of substandard programming, without voicing concerns for such problems, we as citizens degrade the technology available to us.

Enter Linux... a free operating system with the flavouring of Unix, easily capable of running on the same computer you run your commercial software on and more reliably too.

Some of the above text was taken from the Fraser Valley Linux Users Group.

Here are a couple of more in depth articles that help explain why Free Geek supports free and open source software:

http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu

http://osuosl.org/info/why