Stage 1. Microsoft slave
For countless years, you have been a Microsoft product user. Perhaps the biggest factor in this was the fact that any time you wanted to play a PC game, all you could find were titles for DOS and/or Windows. So, you had an MS PC at home. And of course at work, unless you were lucky enough to be doing graphics work, you were given a Windows PC to get your job done.

So that was your world - Windows at home, Windows at work. And as time passed, you became increasingly proficient at using the PC, scraping together your money for upgrades along the way. It was not that you particularly believed in or supported Microsoft. It was more like being plugged into The Matrix - it was the world you knew and there was no reason for you to question it.

Stage 2. The Annoyance Period
Even in the previous stage, the annoyances were there. Blue screens of death. Lost Word documents. Problems getting your new hardware to work with Windows 95, so you get so frustrated, you go buy Windows 98 to do an "upgrade". You manage to pull that off, but things are just working right. You put up with it for a while before deciding to just nuke the whole thing and do a full install, even if you are going to lose everything.

But soon, things start to change. The annoyances increase. You decide to install a few games or search tools from off the 'net. After a while, your PC is creeping to a halt despite your recent upgrade to Windows XP. Welcome to the world of spyware. Your friend sends you a pic of the Easter Bunny and next thing you know, your computer crashes. Unable to get it working, you awake the next morning to read in the paper about the "Easter Bunny" virus making its way around the 'net targeting Windows users. So now you have to become an expert in anti-virus tools and spyware removal tools. While you are proud of your new found knowledge of how to get into the Windows registry to change a setting, you realize you didn't have time to do the report for your PTA committee meeting. The question of whether all that work was worth it begins to creep into your head.

Meanwhile, at work, you start having trouble sharing files with others. Why? Because everyone has different versions of the same software and for some reason, they don't work with each other. What do you mean Word 95 can't open my Word 2000 file? Then some dufus in your office gets infected with the "Easter Bunny" virus and it takes down your whole network. At least you got to spend the day "bonding" with your fellow employees in the breakroom while the "geeks" got things working again.

Finally, you've been reading about this Microsoft trial. Looks like maybe it is a monopoly, but you know what, what do you care? After all, if someone really didn't like MS, they could go get a Mac. Isn't that what the free market is all about. Anyway, it's pretty complicated - on to the sports page.

Stage 3. Plugging The Dike
This stage mostly applies to the workplace. At home, you've become adept at keeping McAfee AV up to date (though you aren't sure why you have to keep paying every few months when a window pops up telling you a file is out of date) and you've learned not to open those attachments.

But at work you start begging IT to get your department's PCs upgraded to the same thing so everyone can work together. You notice that the little corner of your screen is filled up with little icons that go about halfway across the screen. Just what is that little beating heart? Anyway, all you know is you don't like it.

Stage 4. The Big Jolt
Ah, some stability finally. At home, you've got your PC running smoothly at the cost of considerable money and effort. But you've at least achieved some semblence of peace that gives you time to start testing out your new digital camera and setting up a web site to share the photo album with your mother in Kalamazoo. And, more importantly, someone told you about this cool program called Kazaa where you can get "free" music. And it is cool - finally, you can burn a CD with music you want. And though there may be a twinge of guilt about not paying, you justify it by thinking about all the money you spent for CD's with a single song you wanted.

At work, things are going fairly smoothly.

But then a few things happen. At home, you pick up a virus through Kazaa - oh no, not again! Must be your punishment for ripping off the record companies. And why are all your friends e-mailing you telling you that the e-mail they received from you (that you know you didn't send) contains a virus. Suddenly you realize you are stuck in a never ending loop!

At work, you are putting together a budget for your boss when your IT department sends you a memo to let you know your share of "upgrade" costs, spam firewall costs, anti-virus, etc., is going to be more than the rest of your operating budget. WTH?!?!

Finally, you've watched Napster go down. You've seen Microsoft get convicted of being a monopolist, but nothing really done to them. At work, you've had to start working on security and privacy issues.

Reaching the breaking point, you think to yourself - "something's gotta give."

Stage 5. The Quest
Off on your quest to find a better solution to your computer woes. You think, I've heard about this Linux stuff, but is it something I can actually use for real work? So you start looking around, reading articles, discovering Slashdot. You begin reading about people like Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, and others. You learn the terms "open source", "GPL", "the cathedral and the bazaar", and others.

So you decide to give it a try. You scrounge up an old PC, download some ISO's (learning along the way that XP doesn't have any way to burn an ISO natively), and install Linux on the old PC. You get it running, but wow, it sure is strange. So you poke around. For some reason things just don't seem to be clicking. You download another "brand" of Linux and install it. Cool, this one works. And you are off - learning all about your new system.

Six months later, you read there is a new version of your "brand" of Linux. What? Only six months since the last update? You thought it took 2+ years for an operating system to be updated, like MS does it. So you download it. Having used your Linux box just for testing and messing around learning the system, you're not worried about losing anything important, so you install the update. Wow, everything installed fine and is still working. Windows upgrades never did that. You open your e-mail client - everything is still there. This is amazing!

Stage 6. Growth
Having achieved a successful upgrade, you decide to take the plunge and start really using your "new" Linux PC. You learn how to install Firefox and surfing the web takes on a whole new perspective (so much so, that you sneak it onto your work PC as well and amaze your co-workers with how fast you can find stuff on the web). You start using OpenOffice to do those minutes for the PTA, and what do you know, it's easy to use. AND, you can just press a button to make a pdf. Now that is cooooool.

What PC is complete without a new printer? So you buy one, but can't get it to work right away. "Uh-oh" crosses your mind. That's not good. But a quick Google, you find the answer (with complete walk through directions), and ten minutes later you have the printer working. Now that's how "support" should be. You couldn't even get past "hold" in 10 minutes in the past when you had to call MS about a problem.

Meanwhile, your use of the Windows PC at home declines. You still use it for a few things, like iTunes. But then you discover you can't buy just any mp3 player to listen to your music. You have to get an iPod. You're not too bothered by that, but another switch goes off in your head - that's what all that stuff about "vendor lock-in" means.

At work, your experiments at home begin to have an effect. You're dismayed that you have to come in and use a Windows PC. You decide to download OpenOffice to try using it at work, only to discover you no longer have administrator rights to install software on you PC. Aaarrgghhh!

Stage 7. Conversion
It all comes together. You realize Linux really is better than Windows. Along with other software like Firefox instead of IE, or OpenOffice instead of MS Office. And it only continues to get better, as you can tell from the four OS upgrades, two upgrades to OpenOffice, and 5 Firefox upgrades that have occurred in the past two years while MS is still stuck on XP, IE hasn't been upgraded (well, unless you include all those patches), and they are still stuck on Office XP. You laugh when you hear from friends and co-workers about "SP2" breaking all their applications and they have to go buy updated versions. "Suckers" you think to yourself.

You have started following Linux web sites religiously. An interesting lawsuit pops up between SCO and IBM that (as you read) "threatens" Linux. That's not good you think. You start following it and end up at a site like Groklaw or the Yahoo! SCOX Board. You go deeper and deeper into the issues of FOSS and Linux. The concepts start to reveal themselves in your mind as you connect the dots of all that you have learned. Why you need to watch for vendor lock-in. Why you need access to source code. You also start to learn that the FOSS community has many different viewpoints and debate (sometimes extreme) is the modus operandus.

Stage 8. Advocacy
Having become immersed in the world of Linux and FOSS, having become a "convert", you start looking around at how you can help the "movement". You start telling friends about how great Linux is. You burn a Knoppix CD for them. You encourage them to use Firefox to surf the web instead of IE. You introduce them to OpenOffice and maybe even Thunderbird. You get involved in different project mailing lists, offering up your testimony about how great a certain app is when some newbie shows up with questions. One step you take is to setup a web site for people to share news about Linux and for you to share your experiences. Of course, your newfound "voice" let's you experience the "noise" of FOSS that you have witnessed during your conversion.

You start bugging your IT department at work about getting Firefox installed and ask them to put The GIMP on your PC. You even ask them about Linux and they all blow you off with reasons why it wouldn't work in the office (they are, after all, MS experts by now). You've still got to use that blasted Windows and Office, but at least you are getting a little FOSS stuff into the workplace.

You realize you've reached a place where you want to do what you can to help the spread of Linux and other FOSS projects. You have become a FOSS advocate. Congratulations!

So, where does that leave recent converts? And let me say, I would consider myself a recent convert. Can they really become an "advocate" for FOSS? During some of my research, I was looking at some of the acknowledged leaders and found that there was a mix between some with "proprietary" backgrounds before moving to FOSS, while others started right off in FOSS and have always been there. For the most part though, it looks like they all flew right over the MS phenomenon, focusing on their work and getting the movement going. I also noticed that virtually all of them had some type of technical background (mostly programmers).

Is there an advocacy/leadership place for people that have been convinced by the leaders to move to FOSS? Can they become leaders? If so, do they have to become completely, 100% Linux/FOSS users, never setting their hands upon a keyboard connected to a Windows PC? Or can the movement accept that some people have personal situations that cause them to have to use Windows even though they don't want to? What about a company like IBM or Sun that has a mix of FOSS and proprietary products?

And how long does someone have to believe in FOSS before they can be considered an "advocate" or even a "leader" (in some small way)? If they made the move five years ago, are they "ok", but if they only "discovered" Linux/FOSS a year ago, are they automatically disqualified? Is there some test or standard?

I also wonder how people with non-technical/non-programmer backgrounds (aka "user") will be accepted? As more and more people are "converted", it will become more likely that people with varied backgrounds, who might approach the issues from an entirely different angle, will want to not only get involved, but will want to at least be respected for their contributions. I don't think a movement that holds one of its tenets to be a basis in merit is being true to itself if artificial barriers, arguments, and hurdles are introduced to discount the contributions of new believers if they are criticized for their past actions or backgrounds.

I know I come from a background where I had to worry about issues involving public access to documents, trying to open up the government decision-making process, getting people to step outside their "silos" at work to accomplish goals, etc. I haven't ever written code and had to worry about the type of license it was released under, but I have to deal with many of the issues that might be coined "open source principles" - things like transparency, collaboration, freedom. And I've had to become involved in lawsuits and contract negotiations, and other business "stuff". Instead of programming, I've been applying these principles in other fields. I firmly believe that people can take their knowledge and skills and beliefs and transfer them from one field of endeavor to another. Do you? Can the FOSS movement?

Is there a place for someone like me? Or do I have to wait two more years? Or five more years? Or do I have to go back to school to get a degree in computer science or something and work a couple years as a programmer? Or do I have to back to the County and convince them to complete a Linux migration before the City of Munich or IBM finishes their migration? Am I forever branded with the scarlett letters "MS"? Or can I be judged by what I do today and tomorrow to help FOSS without the "sins" of the past being held against me?

Thanks for reading!