On Jun 3, 2006, at 4:54 PM, Julian Oliver wrote:
..on Sat, Jun 03, 2006 at 02:21:47PM +0200, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
On Jun 3, 2006, at 3:27 AM, Yves Degoyon wrote:
ola,
Speaking of, how about releasing that PDP port for Windows?
.
please no.. thank you.
sevy
That's where we have differing opinions on free software. I think that free software should be totally free, and I think that the more free software is available for Windows, the more we chip away at Microsoft. Plus, now there is ReactOS, which is a free Windows.
if only it were that simple ;)
i'm not *ideologically opposed* to Windows ports of Linux software, so much as disappointed whenever it occurs.
porting software to a platform is supporting that platform - you're affirming that the port target, in this case Windows, is deserving of the software. you're also widening the possible user base on that platform, enriching it and increasing the possibility of user investment.
to say it's 'chipping away at microsoft' is stretching it a bit i think, 'Jitter' perhaps. i know several artists that have installed Linux to run PDP, something they seem to be pretty happy about now.
some say ports of popular mail clients and office software may make sense in that the user becomes familiar with software that will run on a non-proprietary platform, making it easier for them to switch later. this may work in the 'Enterprise' where cost-cutting is the primary drive to the adoption of a free OS and application criteria is not especially diverse.
in the case of multimedia applications, i have yet to see that hypothesis pay off. where digital artists are concerned many seem to prioritise application diversity over anything else. because there is a *comparitive* lack of multimedia software on Linux (though more than enough for me) many cling to proprietary platforms like Windows and OSX, chosing to mix proprietary multimedia applications (they've usually stolen) with those of free software. so, because Linux has less 'artists', less software is made only for Linux, and so less artists use it and commit to free-software as a whole. chicken meet egg..
I think you overlook an aspect of free software that is important to me: the freedom to choose which software you want to use. Who I am to tell anyone they should not use a given software? Some people like Windows so much that they are making a free version of it: http://reactos.org More power to them.
I am a long time, staunch advocate of free software, but I have to say that I am not a big fan of GNU/Linux. When you have Linus Torvalds dissing GNOME because they are trying to make software that is usable for non-hackers, that is really what stops people from using GNU/Linux. That attitude, and those design ideas keep GNU/ Linux to a small audience. There is no problem there, there should be choice. What about FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, ReactOS, Plan9, FreeDOS, xMach, OpenSolaris, etc.?
.hc
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As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. - Benjamin Franklin