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Thanks for sharing this!

That could definitely change your outlook (and I'm not talking about the email client)!!

Windows should never have been relied on in a situation like that.

Oh, I have a few stories about Microsoft Outlook too!

wow, I think that would be an interesting story to share with the FSF. they had a call for stories like this a while ago. would you like me to dig it up and get you in touch?

interestingly, we seem to have started using GNU/Linux at about the same time, with the same distro. I used to use GNU on other flavors of Unix before that. I mostly skipped Windows, going straight from MSDOS to GNU.

but my time with nonfree software wasn't quite as painful as yours. I was not dependent on it for work, and I can't recall being life-threatened by exposure to it. I suppose I was lucky to be just a kid while I used it, and that I quickly found something that suited me so much better

Great story and important lesson to be learned 😀
When Gentoo Linux came out, I found the three pages of install instructions were very easy to follow and let me build a minimal, but fully functional system with only the features I wanted. I liked that. I built a server with it and had uptime of years. Years later, I discovered massive problems trying to compile a system for my laptop. That's when I discovered the massive bloated mess from freedeskop.org/Redhat/systemD. That's when I knew Redhat was turning into a monster by claiming Unix is dead and everything is obsolete and no longer supported. Google is trying to do that now with their products too. And now AI everything. But I'm in control thanks to the free software licenses wise people like RMS made. Thankfully, there's always FreeBSD Unix if the GPL gets wrecked. I know Microsoft is up to their old tricks embracing, extending, extinguishing the communities. The iron fist of capitalism never rests it seems...
@𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕒 🏳️‍⚧️🦋 Someone from work who knew me as "the other #linux user" in our shop, introduced me to a new project called #gentoo somewhere round mid 2004; I've been runnin it since.
Gentoo is like the ultimate freedom. I can easily choose what software licenses I want in my system and what to exclude.
For comparisons of proprietary vs Open Source software here, the compressors in the engine room run embedded Linux. Uptime since 20 years ago has been solely based upon required scheduled mechanical maintenance, power outages, or aging power supplies. They never did any funny stuff, unlike Microsoft, which is a daily thing around here