As it should.

If you are a geek, or a geek-wannabe, you quickly learn to deride Windows and to avoid Microsoft products whenever possible. You run Ubuntu, or – if you are less adventurous than affluent – the Mac OS. If your applications only run on Windows, you are quick to point this out as the reason for your operating system of choice, lest you get ridiculed. If you are a die-hard Mac fan, you run Parallels Desktop.

The first geek commandment says: “Thou shalt despise Windows.” Yet the Windows caravan moves on, largely ignored by the open source community, as if ignoring Windows could make it go away.

But things have changed.

In her widely retweeted blog post, Sophia Parafina describes her experience with a set of open source mapping tools for Windows – QGIS, Postgres/PostGIS and TileMill. The confluence of a bunch of open source mapping tools for Windows is hailed as a game changer, and this is not an exaggeration. Open source web mapping, just until very recently the province of the hard-core geogeek, has suddenly come within reach of someone who doesn’t want to run multiple operating systems.

Sophia promises more articles. I can’t wait.