Imp Games

[JerBear]

I read something earlier today regarding which operating systems different presidential candidates are using on their campaign servers. It got me thinking a bit and I came up with the following:

If operating systems were more like politics:
The liberal os would be free for everyone. The government tells the people that all operating systems produced by private parties are based on exploitation of the consumers and the employees of the company. Therefore the only good os is one produced by the government and distributed for free. They create a new department to oversee bug reports. Another one is in charge of distribution. An additional department is created to oversee technical support. Unfortunately it takes 16 weeks to acknowledge receipt of a bug report and another 20 weeks to create a fix. There is a line outside the technical support office that has a 10 hour wait so you can talk to a government employee that gets paid minimum wage, has only barely used the operating system, and takes a two hour lunch break as soon as you get to the front of the line. To cover the additional departmental costs, taxes are increased by an amount equivalent to $1000 per US citizen.

The green party os is identical to the democrat one, but requires a larger tax increase because all the computers used in development are made from recycled materials and are run from energy produced using solar panels on top of each building. Also, any corporation using the green party os that runs it using carbon-based energy gets charged $1000 per copy.

The right-wing Christian-conservative operating system is not built by the federal government. They offer a few modules and modules and tell the states to develop their own copies. To gain support for the idea from their base they offer special incentives and tax discounts to Christian organizations that help develop the modules. When the plan is passed, they institute a national day of prayer and thanksgiving to God for revealing His truth that any good operating system is formed through a process of "intelligent design."

The neo-conservative operating system is promised to be fast, efficient, cheap, and easy to use. Unfortunately they hire developers from foreign countries, switch projects left and right on the developers, reduce benefits, and finally fire them in favor of other developers. In response, the developers leave behind poorly written and uncommented code. A few of the computers in the development office crash. The office proclaims that it is the result of terrorist attacks from foreign fascists that hate our cheap and efficient operating systems. War is declared on every nation the developers ever did any coding work for (except the US). Meanwhile several new departments are created. One adds security features to the os to "protect the software of our citizens from terrorist attacks" and another recruits agents to covertly enter the homes of everyone running a copy of the os and scan the computer for any malicious software. Protests are met with the response that, "It's for the good of the country. Why should you care if you don't have something to hide? You're not being patriotic!"

The libertarians get into office and are asked about an operating system. They respond, "If you think it's important enough to have one, go write your own *#(% operating system!"

JB