Today's edition of nrc.next (Dutch newspaper) discusses the Windows Vista release in its main article. It tries to be neutral, although I find them 60% pro and 40% against Vista.

I never really cared about Vista, I know what was inside: air. And you, as open source user/developer, would have known that as well. And the news article confirms that thought pretty well. All the stuff they implemented is already made available for years by Apple or by us (and we offer it for free and for free!). Vista is not for free: 279 euros for Home Basic or 549 euros for Ultimate Edition. Enough money for buying a reasonable computer these days (without OS). By the way, the computer you'll need for running Vista is probably not available for that price. Minimum requirements: 1 GHz, 1 GB RAM and 128 video RAM. Recommended requirements: 2 GHz, 2 GB RAM and 256 video RAM. For a freakin' operating system.

One of the points the paper mentioned for buying Vista is that it is faster. The search option allows you to access files faster and the Windows Explorer is more customizable for a better workflow. And, Vista gives common applications a higher priority in memory: so it feels faster. Heh... I don't think it's the scheduler which makes things faster, it's your hardware you've purchased for a 1000 euros.

One thing that was badly missing in the article was the DRM issue, no single word was spent on it. Isn't that supposed to be one of the biggest issues with this operating system? This is not about hardware or cash, this is about people's freedom.

I'm going to stop giving Vista airtime. I already exceeded the rant level and I have to prepare for my last exam this week. In the meantime, just do what you are already doing: make open source rock.