Not giving Microsoft money means you are not funding the exact reason why Linux on the desktop is obscure in the first place.
If MS did not have such comprehensive control of the consumer computer space, they would not have pervasive "deals" with every vendor to lock them in to shipping Windows across the board. Because if you, as a hardware manufacturer, install Ubuntu and make sure all the drivers work, out of the box it is no more buggy than Windows is at this point - probably less, and much more usable than Windows 8 for the average joe.
But Microsoft has a firm grasp across the entire industry on all the vendors, and their ubiquity for 20 years has given them mindshare you cannot easily unravel. And giving them more money is not helping that.
Not giving Microsoft money means you are not funding the exact reason why Linux on the desktop is obscure in the first place.
If MS did not have such comprehensive control of the consumer computer space, they would not have pervasive "deals" with every vendor to lock them in to shipping Windows across the board. Because if you, as a hardware manufacturer, install Ubuntu and make sure all the drivers work, out of the box it is no more buggy than Windows is at this point - probably less, and much more usable than Windows 8 for the average joe.
But Microsoft has a firm grasp across the entire industry on all the vendors, and their ubiquity for 20 years has given them mindshare you cannot easily unravel. And giving them more money is not helping that.