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Using Windows w/ 100% Open-Source Software?
XRayX asks: "I'm currently installing a Windows 98 PC and I'm trying to install just Open Source Software (except Windows and Drivers). Okay, there's Freeamp, GIMP, Mozilla, OpenDivX, VirtualDub, Audacity, Abiword, Tuxracer and FlaskMPEG for Windows; but I'm still missing some good Open Source Tools for Windows: a picture viewer and a GUI Zip-program. Can anyone help?" While an interesting thing to try, I don't think it will be as easy as it sounds. How many others of you have tried to pull this off and how successful were you?
A big obstacle for adopting open source in the Windows world is lack of understanding of the benefits. The Windows culture is all about commercialware and shareware; even 'freeware' means binary-only software. Providing an easy to install set of open source tools for Windows is not a bad idea - it would be much easier for newbies to experiment with this, and if it included a set of tutorials (most are on the web already) it could make quite a big contribution to educating people about Linux/Unix culture.
I'm thinking about developers and power users here, who might want to experiment with Perl, Unix scripting, GIMP, and other handy open source tools. Of course, it might be better in the long run to just install Linux, but incremental upgrades are a big reason why Windows won over OS/2 (you could try Windows 3.x but retreat to the safety of DOS without problems). Now people are running native mode Windows (NT and 2000) because it is more stable, faster, etc - why not make an incremental 'Linux tools on Windows' setup, allowing upgrade to true Linux later? Ideally, someone would take Cygwin and a bunch of other tools, and put them on a single CD including much of what's in a current Linux distro. I end up doing this on some systems, but a ready-made CD with installer would be much easier and more complete - no more systems with Cygwin but without Perl...
The majority of users in business have to use Windows on their desktop/laptop and would get in trouble if they installed Linux, particularly if the multiboot install messed up and stopped Windows booting. Having an open source distro for Windows would be a great way to provide some benefits... 'Linux for Windows' with an easy upgrade to 'true Linux'.
Actually, there's a very good reason why ordinary users (non-developers) often prefer open-source programs over other alternatives: they know that it's much less likely the program will die.
I can think of many great Mac and Windows utilities that are no longer available because the original author lost interest. However, if a program is open-source, there's a much better chance that someone will continue to maintain it.
Of course, it's silly to use an open-source program when it's simply not as good as a closed, but free, or cheap shareware program. Support open-source, but don't sacrifice productivity! For example, Audacity, the open-source audio editor I'm developing, is usable now, but doesn't have as many features as CoolEdit (yet). So if you are running Windows, and can afford CoolEdit, you're still better off buying it (of course, I love it if you use Audacity when you can and send in bug reports!).
If you are choosing GPL/GNU/Open Source because you are making a political statement, or doing it for philosophical reasons, you shouldn't be using Windows.
If you AREN'T doing it for political or philosophical reason, but are merely getting the best tools for the job, there are better inexpensive/free, (closed source) tools, so use those.