The coalition comprising the Free Software Foundation and environmental activist organizations has gathered around 1500 signatures for their open letter calling on their members and other social activists to reject the resource-intensive Windows Vista in favor of the Free Software GNU/Linux systems.

The coalition that wrote an open letter to social activists to reject Windows Vista because it places undue restrictions on users' freedom and will negatively impact our environment by encouraging people to toss out perfectly good computers in favor of more powerful machines, just so they can run Windows Vista. The letter points to Free Software, and to GNU/Linux as a better approach to computing in general, because GNU/Linux will run on older hardware and affords users greater freedom and control over their software.

According to one testimonial statement, by Paul Roeland, "...if we tell people to drink fair-trade coffee and recycle their waste, and tell corporations to behave responsibly, we could hardly be using software from a multinational giant that uses unfair marketing tactics, now could we :-)".

BadVista's John Sullivan called on the community to, "Help us demonstrate how much support there is for a digital world without arbitrary restrictions on the freedoms we need to be effective agents for political change."

What should have been a boon to the computer hardware industry and Microsoft alike may very well turn out to be a bullet in Microsoft's own foot. Migrating to GNU/Linux as a strategy to positively impact the environment and avoid restrictions on freedom would impact the marketplace beyond the social activists in the world. Given the Free Software community's reach one, teach one approach, many of the social activists will also work to convert even more people to GNU/Linux. An active, cohesive coalition working to spread GNU/Linux through a global network of activists would greatly increase GNU/Linux adoption.

And Microsoft is vulnerable; it would be impossible, or nearly so, to reduce the resources needed to run its Vista operating system. Nor is Microsoft of a disposition to remove their Digital Restrictions Management functionality. Environmental and social activists now have the upper hand - two strong reasons to avoid Windows Vista and a global audience increasingly conscious of the very environmental and social issues raised by the organizations behind the letter.