Slashdot Mirror
TheOpenCD Launches First Edition
Emil fra Loeneberg writes with welcome news from TheOpenCD. "This article
on NewsForge describes a project which plans to
distribute Open Source Software (OSS) widely to Windows users.
You can download a CD image from a mirror site and start spreading
the OSS message. It's basically an OSS distro for Windows. This
project was also
mentioned on Slashdot
back in April and now they are ready with a first release. Any first reviews?"
I've found that it's much easier to say to people 'hey, check out this software that runs on windows' than it is to say 'hey, ditch windows and use linux'. People are generally more responsive if they don't have to leave their comfort zone, then once they have a chance to use Free Software, see that they like it, that it's better, have used OpenOffice in windows, then say oh yea, Linux can do that, and more, and with more freedom. It's especially easy to nab programmers that way, because they get to see the source of what they're using.
I've been doing this for a while, building my own CDs and passing them out. First with Win32 software then a Linux distro. Knoppix was rad because it let me add another step to the conversion process. It's a step to change mindshare and for a lot of people OpenCD will be their first step towards computing freedom.
I leave a trail of little Linux users everywhere I go and this is the tactic I've been using for a long time. Now they've made my job easier.
I've been using Open Office on Windows for a few weeks, and it's just fantastic.
I think too many people focus on Linux when they talk about open-source software, when the beauty of this software is that it's portable and usable on so many platforms. When I have to use Windows, I love to be able to use The Gimp and OpenOffice, since I'm not locked into proprietary formats.
Microsoft's monopoly exists in their applications, which have always been much better than the easily available alternatives, until now.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
It deserves as much press time and attention as possible.
Also, the inclusion of Celestia is a great move to demonstrate the possibilities of OSS.
Free OSes (Linux, BSDs,...) have a lot of values, _one_ of which is their large library of free applications.
By bundling those for windows, people will have less reasons to switch to one of those free OSes. Of course, there are still reasons, but there is one less.
People who don't matter for ideology behind free OSes won't bother switching. ANd I'm afraid this means a lot of users...
There is some momentum which is needed with free OSes to have the attention span of big companies, and convince them to throw resources at supporting their products under those OSes. Having less people switch to those means less momentum, and therefore less attention.
On the other end, using those tools under Windows will at least render much easier data exchanges, and is therefore a first step in breaking the dependency on those proprietary and more or less closed formats.
I'm not sure if this is ideologically good or not. It will for sure be usefull for those who have no possiblity to switch of OS (because of job requirements, or games,...).
My 2 cents...
-- No signature yet.
This is an admirable idea. Unfortunately, it will suffer the same fate that Linux suffers in most businesses; no drop-in replacement for MS-Access. I'd love to see an 'Open Office' product replace that bloated hog MS Office, but my employer lives on Access. It's used as both a front end, and as stand alone single user databases. --- Is it possible for Newsforge to use an even smaller font? I can barely read it now...
I don't have a broadband connection, you insensitive clod.
Well, actually I do, but many don't.
Besides, URLs change over time, and if people were so inclined to download the software, a simple google search would do the job, why bother getting it from a CD?
Don't quote me on this.
Yet another troll. What, exactly, would be the point in making the process of trying out all this open-source software more difficult by forcing a potential user to download all of it? That's what they're trying to do by creating the CD, you see. Make it MORE CONVENIENT, so that people less knowledgable about their computers, or OSS, will consider using it. I mean imagine how impressed someone would be if you gave them a CD of fully functional software that fulfilled most of the needs they'd ever have with their computer, without having to download a thing, with the added bonus that they can let any of their friends have it..legally.
As for the Internet connection part, well..I more or less have come to respect ignorant remarks such as that from people like you. If you really have lost your perspective, try working out on a calculator how long it would take someone to download 650MB of programs on a 56k modem, which many people are still using for their Internet connections.
Not everybody has a fast connection. CD's are cheap and hold tons of data. Why I bet this OpenCD project could put at least 15 major software pojects on a CD. Then someone could just, now get this, install off of the CD. No lengthy downloads. Huh! Huh! Howabout that? This isn't for people like us to use...this is for people like us to download and hand out to friends and family to see what we're talking about.
This needs to be done in conjunction with a robust support system (that corporations would pay for). The software can be free, but for businesses to adopt this kind of thing, there will need people who provide the operational support and integration sevices which can not be effecively done without money. The prime candidate for this job is IBM. Once people use this at work, they'll use it at home.
I like this. Easy to use software that is genuinely useful in a well presented form. Well done.
Well, while i agree with most everthing you just said, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
I'm going to distribute this CD to everybody i can, & tell them, if they like it, to copy it for others!
Even if it never gets a fraction of the market, more users are always good, even if it is just a few.
Isn't that what keeps OSS going?
Many businesses are too smart to download and install warez versions of anything. It is illegal. Most businesses are too worried about liability issues arising from disgruntled ex-employees blowing the whistle on them for stealing software.
:-)
OSS versions make it possible for these companies to save money, not suffer lock-in, and not worry about being eaten by their own young.
MFG: "The system supports both the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and WIMP (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) platforms."
The reason this is a bad idea is because this is NOT how most Windows apps are shipped. Most Windows apps do not force you to go to a website to download the software, they come on an easy-to-install CD. The idea is to have users believe that OSS apps are just as easy to install and use as Windows apps. You don't want to point people to a URL to download, only to have it change, or to suddenly have what was once a stable production-ready release replaced with the next beta.
Also, recall that some of these apps are going to be GPL, which means they come with the source. Not everyone has broadband, and those source bundles can be HUGE.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
Guys, I appreciate your work but you are truely amazing.
Why didn't you give away gnucleus, miranda ICQ?
Miranda ICQ is the most lightweight GUI and GNU ICQ you can find on windows. Even my most fanatical MS developer friends use it. miranda-icq.sourceforge.net
and Gnucleus even has auto-update code... gnucleus.sourceforge.net
The most funny is those 2 are your "domain neighbours"
Oh as you don't know for sure, gnucleus is the gnutella client which was stolen by morpheus. Used by THOUSANDS of windows users, check download.com.
This post will get +5 so, I post AC
It is similar to GNUWin, but it's more critical when including programs, focusing only on the best. That's also why the ISO is only 300MB.
you slashdot the website the cd images are stored on and you want us to review them? Basically you've set the project back almost 2 days until the story leaves the front page.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
From the What is TheOpenCD website:
I'm sorry, but what is exactly open source philosophy? Open source is about technical and economical advantages. Free software is about philosophy. Please do not flame me for saying the obvious. When Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and published them as Open Source Definition in 1998 he did it exactly because he wanted free software without the strong philosophy associated with the "free software" term since at least the announcement of the GNU Project in 1983.
I think that TheOpenCD project should not talk about philosophy if they want to promote the open source movement. But if they think that the philosophy is important, then they should promote the free software movement and change their name to TheFreeCD. Because the philosophy is exactly the difference between free software and open source movements. If they talk about "open source philosophy" they are being against the main priciples of both movements.
TheOpenCD project people should read these books:
Those books are not very long, but they provide enough background to let avoid using such unfortunate oxymorons like "open source philosophy." I strongly respect both free software and open source movements and I can not stay ignorant when people insult any of them, while the term "open source philosophy" insults both.
~Christopher Doopov
A lot of these programs are cross platform.
A lot of linux users don't understand why anyone should spend the time to write/port windows software. The reason is that this sort of thing helps users transition at their own pace.
They have the ability to run open source software under the OS that their familiar and comfortable wth and the next time the license renewall comes up they can say, "hey, I can run this same software under a free OS instead of paying license fees!"
I've gotten a lot of Windows users to start using PuTTY, WinSCP2 and OpenOffice. I really think this is the first step to becoming comfortable with linux on a daily basis.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The same can occur here, too. It's very difficult to get Word users to switch to Linux! But if the majority of word processor users (for example) used Open Office (or Abiword or KWord), then they'd find it essentially trivial to switch.
People don't buy operating systems. They buy applications, and then get the operating system to run it. If you want people to use your operating system, you need to get them to use the applications that run on your operating system.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
I think open source software is not so much an alternative to proprietary software but rather an alternative to stolen proprietary software, aka warez. I personally use GPL software because I can't afford the proprietary "versions" and I'd rather not steal it. Linux tends to be the perfect platform to run software of this ilk so I use Caldera OpenLinux as my main and only os.
Open source is a lawful and creative answer to warez! Perhaps it's an angle distributers like OpenCD should look at.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
The ISO image is only 300MB, so more than half of the CD is empty. I would suggest filling it with some music. The empty space should be filled with about 100 songs. Free software is not the only Free data out there, there is also Free music.
root@aio:~# nmap -sX -iR -p1- # Ho, ho, ho! Merry Xmas, everyone!