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Shouldn’t Obama use Linux, and not a Mac?

November 17, 2008 in McPherson

For those of you who haven’t heard, Barack Obama will be the first president to have a laptop on his desk at the oval office. (He does however have to give up his trusted Blackberry.)

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in a conversation with Arianna Huffington on MSNBC, today said that he hopes Obama uses a Mac and not a PC. Excuse me Eric (and Arianna) isn’t there another option you may be missing?

Regardless of your politics, it’s clear that Barack Obama’s campaign used the Internet to greater effect than any other campaign in history. Just check out his transition web site Change.gov to see this efficacy in action. He has stated he will create an office of the CTO for the United States. He has harnessed YouTube, text messaging, email fundraising and participatory campaigning to great success. So really, a Mac?

I think all reasonable people would accept that a Linux-powered laptop would be the politically correct choice for Obama or any president of the United States. Why?

  • Transparency — Linux code is more secure since it’s open.
  • Participatory — open source is the paragon of meritocracy.
  • Free — Mac may be the choice of the media and entertainment elites (come on, you know who you are) but Linux is for the people, by the people. It’s Mainstreet’s answer to the elitism of Madison Ave.
  • Open — if Obama reports a bug correctly all Linux users benefit. Anyone can become a member of the Linux community.

On CNN, Obama has even been labelled the Open Source President by a Republican strategist who quotes from The Cathedral and the Bazaar. (No kidding! You should watch it.)

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

So given all of that, shouldn’t he use open source?

Let’s take a stand against the command and control systems that create Windows and Macs. No matter who you may have supported in the election, let’s send a message to the office of the President that our government should support open standards and open source.

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  • Amanda McPherson

    Amanda is Vice President of Marketing and Developer Programs at the Linux Foundation. She can be reached at amanda (at) linux-foundation dot org.

    Amanda McPherson


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      6 comments

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      November 18, 2008 at 7:57 am

      David Sterry

      Yes, Obama should use linux. Great post. I’m thinking the free/libre open source software community could benefit from the same sort of YouTube, text messaging, email fundraising and participatory campaigning that Obama used to get the word out about free software and what it can do for people. What would Obama do? Maybe setup a site to help people email Obama on choosing Linux. That just might work…

      November 18, 2008 at 10:13 am

      Zohar

      I strongly disagree to your post. First of all some of the OS X architecture is based on Open Source. Also - believing in open standards doesn’t interfere with using a Mac. You can still CC your work, create open source applications, as so forth. Open Source doesn’t mean free. And Open Source doesn’t mean Linux.

      November 24, 2008 at 3:04 pm

      Victor

      poitics is politics and software is software… in my country the government made a law to enforce the use of Linux on government offices. The whole idea about open source and security got spoil when politicians start saying that the government should use open source to escape from the capitalism… As long as they start using open source for the good reasons, and not for political reason I will be a supporter of the idea

      December 7, 2008 at 3:38 am

      Yonah

      You want the president of the United States to waste time with bug reports? What a joke. Next you’ll want him to submit a patch. Of course, that’s the other side of the story you zealots never like to reveal. The piles of bugs never fixed, half fixed, or totally ignored.

      December 21, 2008 at 11:17 pm

      Matthew

      Windows is “open source” for the U.S. Government. I know that in the DoD, we have a small group at DISA who review Windows source code. DISA controls White House Comm. (http://www.disa.mil/whca/), hence, Windows is “open source” for President-elect Barack Obama.