Personal Statement
About Microsoft Windows Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College

I use Windows 98 and I want to stop. Before this I used Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and MS-DOS, and was just about as frustrated as I am now. Why have I stayed with it? Call it Osborne Syndrome. In 1982 I bought an Osborne computer and was left high and dry when the company went out of business. After that I thought I'd play it safe by sticking to market leaders. This proved to be a good policy in the switch from Word Star to WordPerfect, and a bad policy in the switch from CP/M to DOS and Windows.

However, since moving to DOS and Windows I've generated nearly two gigabytes of data in the proprietary file formats of my major applications. I can't leave this behind. It's the work of my life. That's the only reason why I can't leave Windows immediately.

I imagine that many other Windows users feel the same chain clamped around their ankles. If we vow to move to a better operating system when our major applications are ported, and if we go public with this vow, and if we are numerous, then we might give an incentive to those who can solve our problem.

So I hereby vow to move to another operating system when my major applications are ported in such a way that my data files can follow along. The only development that will change my mind is a virtually bug-free successor to Windows 98.

This page is an appeal for help. The companies that make it possible for us to move will get our business. Let us help each other.

Message to Microsoft

• You've been coasting on the excellence of the applications that run only on Windows. I use your operating system to get at certain superb applications, not vice versa. Your operating system is a buggy, crash-prone horror that cannot be tolerated by people with serious work to do. Your only chance to keep me as a customer is to debug Windows before my applications are ported to another OS.

Message to application developers

• You're terrific. If you only support Windows, then you are stranding us, your loyal users, on a desert island. You are also diminishing your revenues. You are also perpetuating the mediocrity and monopoly power of Windows. Please port your apps to better operating systems so that we can support you without supporting Windows. (Important detail:  please write file translators, if necessary, so that we can take our old data files with us. Without this we cannot move.)

Message to OS developers

• Don't be misled or discouraged by the huge number of people who use Windows. I'm one of them and I'm more than ready to switch. I'm not here because I like it. I'm here while I wait for something specific. My first choice is the porting of my critical apps to a better operating system. My second choice is the thorough debugging of Windows. The years it will take Microsoft to get its act together are your Windows of Opportunity. You can speed things up by helping applications developers port their Windows products to your OS and by reading Windows data files.

In my case, the primary applications are Ecco Pro, Eudora Pro, Netscape, and WordPerfect. Other important apps are HomeSite, Info Select, Turbo Pascal and Borland Delphi. Some of these have already been ported, and one of them (Ecco Pro) isn't being maintained at all. But I can't move until a critical mass of these have been moved first.

Your list of primary applications will differ from mine. But if you don't make it public, then developers may not appreciate how large the market is for a ported version of their product.

Your taste in operating systems may also differ from mine. I deliberately do not specify which operations systems are better than Windows. I could be happy moving to the Mac, to BeOS, to Solaris, to Linux, or perhaps even to yet-unwritten systems. If you favor a certain OS, you should say so in your public statement.

If you think we can make a difference by making our pledges public, then make yours public. Perhaps someone who has more time than I do could find a way to keep track of us. (An icon on our pages? A web-ring? A form-based list on which we could sign up and declare ourselves? —just don't call it a registry.)

Will this have any effect? I don't know. I'd rather try it and find out than crash and roboot one more time without trying.

First put online, June 1, 1999.

I normally copyright my web pages, but I don't copyright this page. I encourage others to copy it, use it, or link to it in composing their own statements about Windows.

Peter Suber, Department of Philosophy, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, 47374, U.S.A.
peters@earlham.edu.