Vista today…

Posted on by Chris Warburton

Well, since I missed DefectiveByDesign.org’s Anti-DRM action day I knew I had to do something, no matter how token, to show I won’t put up with Windows Vista. The other day I designed some leaflets, then yesterday I (eventually, long story involving postscript, dodgy margins, cutting and sticking, etc.) printed them off, cut them up and distributed them.

It might not be much, but at least I have shown my colours and I have finally gotten off my arse to do something rather than just thinking about doing something. It went quite well I think, I just hung around outside the Student Union. I met seemingly everyone I know in Sheffield, and gave them leaflets, (if you’re reading this Mike then good luck with Debian, and it is GDM you need!) and that was nice. Met someone from Physics and had a bit of a “What? You’re leafletting? My respect for you has gone way down.” “Ah, but look what it’s about.” “Oh cool, I’ll have one.”-type conversation, had a little chat with a nice man who came back to talk about Vista tracking illegal downloads, having a killswitch for unlicensed copies, content protection, etc. I don’t know whether what his friend had said is true or not, but I offered my knowledge and stuff. Also met a nice man, who I now refer to as “Kubuntu Man”, who said he was just off to install Kubuntu. I like that man. Also had quite a few “What’s this about?” “It’s against Windows” “Great!” affairs. I still have a few left, but the big pile was going down quickly and I stopped early to go for lunch at Wokmania (I’m not so geeky that I turn down dinner with my girlfriend in favour of advocating FLOSS). Wokmania was nice, although I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already had a bit to eat. Then a quick tram ride to the train station, a quite long (and wet) farewell, then a trek back to Ranmoor where I had an extraordinarily large, and I would say well deserved, poo.

Next on the agenda is the University’s free Vista downloads, but that will have to wait until after the 6th (I somehow ended up getting put in charge of the DVD-playingness of the Pagan Society’s film night and have no idea how to proceed). Until next time…