Windows XP was one of the most successful version of Microsoft Windows operating system, in terms of its adoption and popularity. It was there and still being used in most of the PC’s for nearly 12 years.
While Microsoft has ended their support to Windows XP on April 8th, there was a lot of confusion, fear of losing sensible data, uncertainty, etc., But these are not the consequences of a regular PC users who switch on their PC for browsing, gaming and watching movies.
Rather the concerns are from the Public and Private sectors like Banks, Government Offices which were running Windows XP in their ATM’s and other mission critical machines.
If those machines are affected, indeed it affects everything. Imagine, all ATM’s are compromised because of an vulnerability in Windows XP. Now even though microsoft knows there is an vulnerability, they will not fix or send an patch, because they have officially ceased their support and the public services that every common people use daily are affected.
There is a high risk of losing your transactions to online fraudulences using these vulnerabilities. A nations economy is now in stake. We are literally in the mercy of some Proprietary Software (Windows) which is from another Country (Microsoft – USA). It is like handing over a nations wealth to another nation.
Now if that another nation does something, it largely affects this nation, which is what is happening right now in India. People can switch to Windows 8 or something ++, but what is the guarantee that Microsoft will not cease the support of the same in next 8 or 4 years, so we have to waste our money on upgrading to new hardwares that support new versions of Operating systems and to purchase new support license for their new version. It is okay for 1 machine, but banks and other public sectors aren’t running 1 machine, there are thousands of machines.
It’s time to learn from mistakes and not to repeat them again. Let us make the Government of India hear our voices. Adopt Free Software, Support Free Software. This will create new employment opportunities for our Computer science and IT engineers within our country.
This is the reason why it is a perfect time to switch to a GNU/Linux distribution.
Puducherry Gnu/Linux Users Group 