Most of us have our technological lives dominated by the usual big, corporate names like Apple and Microsoft. And it may seem pretty daunting to leave those behind.

But Dan Gillmor, professor of practice at ASU’s Cronkite School and former tech reporter for The San Jose Mercury News, is giving it a try. He wrote about it in a recent essay called "Why I’m Saying Goodbye to Apple, Google and Microsoft."

There are groups of people who have already pushed themselves away from many of the huge tech names and have focused on the free software movement. Hans Kugler, Chairman of the Phoenix Linux Users Group, is one of them.

We talked with Gillmor and Kugler.