Here we go down the troll hole. Sure, I'll bite.

where "better" in this case means famine, the privilege of enduring the Cultural Revolution, resettlement, suppression of their religion, suppression of basic information about what's going on in the country...sounds awesome. All better now!

I guess that's why there are such tight restrictions on foreign travelers in Tibet. The Chinese government wouldn't want foreigners to feel jealous of all the "better." Quite considerate of them, really.

It's interesting that you choose to word it this way:

So apparently the Chinese government is doing bad stuff, but whoa! You should see how it USED to be! These days we execute ten innocent people a day, but back then they'd execute 20! That's a 50% improvement! Look how much better things are!

First of all, converting the Dalai Lama to Linux is about the coolest IT project I've ever heard of, so congratulations

That aside, there are practical considerations and there are philosophical ones you'll want to consider. Practically speaking, no platform is 100% secure. Linux has historically been more secure than Windows. MS has made a lot of progress in the last decade or so.

The question is, do you prefer the closed-source approach or the open-source one? Would you rather the problems be hidden away, or laid out for all to find? In the closed-source scenario, knowledge of exploits may be less common, but that cuts two ways. Less attackers will be aware of an exploit, but less defenders will be aware of it as well. That may well result in the exploits that do occur being much more severe.

Beyond those practical considerations, which approach fits better with the values of the Tibetan community and the Dalai Lama in particular? In my mind, open source is the embodiment of non-attachment.

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