The Microsoft Metaphor

While not directly about sustainability, I found yesterday’s column by San Franicisco Chronicle writer Mark Morford (via The Higher Pie) interesting in its attack on Microsoft and its near-monopolistic control of operating systems. The more I think about, the more I realize that Microsoft is a fitting symbol for an unsustainable model of production and consumption — the technological equivalent of monoculture. At the same time, I do have a criticism of Morford’s take — moving from Microsoft to Apple is also a fitting symbol of how we try to solve problems in our current midset — move from one single solution to another. I think the open source model provides a much more sustainable system for software development in that it’s evolutionary and distributed — “organic” if you will. Of course, all of the may be the result of the piece of old pizza I ate yesterday…