# The Worm That Didn't Turn Up

Read (yet again) about [the prevalence of worms, spyware and
viruses][1] among Windows users. This pretty much sums up how I feel
about the [dangers of the MS Windows computing monoculture [PDF]][2]
(although I've been Windows-free since 1995). A choice quote:

> In my case, for example, I have not used a Windows machine for any
> serious purpose since 1999. And in those six years, I have never
> had a computer virus, trojan or worm. Not a single one. Neither
> has any adware or spyware taken over my browser (which also comes
> with a facility for automatically blocking pop-up windows as well
> as the ability to do tabbed browsing). And all this despite being
> connected to the net 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The author asks the question why do people put up with a constant
barrage spyware, adware, viruses and other malware? I think the
answer is simple - people will use whatever software and operating
system comes with their PC, and MS's exclusive OEM agreements with
consumer hardware retailers pretty much guarantees what that will
be.

As is often painfully recognized by most geeks, the vast majority of
consumers just don't care, don't have time, or don't even want to
know that there are alternatives. They use what comes with the PC
they buy, period.

The business world is slightly different, in that the people
provisioning workplace PC's are generally more tech-savvy than the
average consumer. So what drives the madness in the workplace? One
word - Office. For most people, it's just not convenient to work
with anything but MS Office. In any given workday, they are
guaranteed to have to receive and send all sorts of email
attachments with their business peers, and they don't want to have
to think about document format conversion, since their peers use
Office, too.

It's even worse for example, in accounting departments, because they
tend to make heavy use of Excel spreadsheet features that are just
not supported by alternatives like OpenOffice.org. The networking
community's exclusive use of Visio is another example, but even
worse, since there are no pieces of FOSS that can import or export
Visio file formats.

[1]: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1553120,00.html
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060617230238/http://www.usenix.org/publications/login/2005-12/openpdfs/geer.pdf