[Dalewyn]

>their (very mysterious and serious) "doings".

Seeing as this needs demystifying for some bizarre reason...:

* Office work (including literally Microsoft Office documents, no substitutes acceptable).

* Occasional specialist work (CAD, Adobe Illustrator, etc.)

* Play; a man needs his vidja gaemz and some cold beer at the end of a long day.

[nonrandomstring]

Yeah sorry I didn't mean to be rude other than to josh you about mysterious "doings".

You made it sound like they were somehow special, like, I dunno, particle physics that could only run on a custom quantum computer.

Now you're specific, looks like those are all perfectly normal and ordinary things, right?

I also had to use a very specialist CAD system. In those days the only things it would run on were Sun Microsystems and HP Unix boxen.

Other than Microsoft's monopoly grip, and your need to interface with other use ^H^H^Hvictims of that monopoly, is there any reason you wouldn't try a friendlier, more socially conscious solution?

[Dalewyn]

I mean, I would first point out Linux and FOSS aren't a "friendlier" solution.

Daring to ask about a problem will inevitably devolve into "You're committing heresy." and getting taken for a ride about changing my entire process and environment when that was never my inquiry nor even desirable.

As for socially conscious: Paying for good, practical software that serves my needs is a good thing. Both for myself and the developers, a win-win.

FOSS has a social contract problem. There are many open source developers who need/want money for their labor who get shut down and even coerced into free-as-in-beer for daring to ask for compensation, and many more project derelicts strewing the land abandoned due to lack of resources.