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Talk to the GNUWin II Team
imevil writes "GNUWin II is a collection of Free Software for Windows, and it also includes articles about Free Software and explanation pages. It is multilingual (it was born as a Swiss product). You can browse the CD online or download the ISO from one of our mirrors. The GNUWin II team is ready to answer to your questions, about GNUWin II, and also about GNU Generation, the student association at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne who gave birth to the GNUWin project."
What was the hardest aspect of producing the GNUWin II CD? Was it selecting the software? Was it making sure the software worked okay (ie, were there any major portings issues, and if so, how much work did you have to do vs. how much did the developer do). Was it something else entirely?
Also, what criteria did you use to select the software? Did you consider which applications had a UI that Windows users would find more comfortable? Did you consider any programs that you weren't able to get running under Windows?
BTW, best of luck with the project. My father has been using the Win32 port of the GIMP for about two years now and loves it! As I type, he's (ab)using his work's net connection to d/l the ISOs.
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
Windows is pretty easy to live with as it is.
I guess it depends on your paradigm... command-line commandos don't like the GUI's insulation, while GUI geeks hate remembering a bunch of bizarre program names.
Unless I'm missing the point - the only real failing of Win32 is that a lot of stuff can't be scripted because of the lack of a CLI. Does GNUWIN allow for some of this? Does it have hooks into system admin programs on Win32?
Really? Their first documented release was around 1996, five years after Linux. Am I missing something?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
"In the past year, we've seen a lot of attempts by companies to make a profit by selling mixed open and closed source software. Lindows and CrossOver spring to mind. How do you, both personally and as a representative of the EFF, react to this trend? Is it beneficial to the Free Software Movement in the short and long term?"
---- By tps12, one of the best Slashdot members of all time
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
No. For some reason, RMS considers Windows a ``complete system'' which is left in place by these sorts of things. So, no GNU labeling (just like installing GNU on BSD doesn't involve a GNU/ holy war from RMS). I'm not entirely sure what crucial system component Windows has that Linux (as distributed by Linus) doesn't (however you want to read that), but RMS has appearantly identified something.
Btw., this came up on the Cygwin mailing list a while back (RMS was cc'ed); google cygwin.com for it if you're interested in a link.
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
Do you have, or would you consider adding, a voluntary popularity rating system for the programs on your CD? I'm thinking of the likes of the debian popularity-contest which tracks which programs are installed (and how often they're used I think) to decide what programs should be included on which CD of their release. It would also help for the Linux (BSD, any other FreeOS you care to name) community as they could see which programs Windows people like and therefore can help most in bringing them across from Win to Lin.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I have to agree.
The parent also makes the mistake that just because something is Open Source, that is has to run on Linux. Open source is open source and open source that runs on a proprietary system is still a good thing. One could argue that you shouldn't be using a proprietary system in the first place, but that's not relevant to the question of whether open source programs should be developed for use on proprietary systems.
If you don't expose users to open source programs, then how can they ever become supporters of open source? If all you use is proprietary software, you won't know that there are other options.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I use Cygwin all the time at work because I don't have the option of installing Linux. It is pretty dang convenient for a lot of things, especially little bash 1-liners for doing bulk file renaming and such. Consider:
$ for i in *.ps; do ps2pdf.bat $i; done
$ for i in *.pdf; do mv $i form_${i%.pdf}-031015.pdf; done
If you have a hundred or so files which you want to rename or prepend things or change the suffix, for instance, it is a slick way to do it rather than clicking away for hours.
Likewise, you can use awk to do some pretty nifty tricks with large text files.
And finally, I don't rate to get a copy of Visual Studio, so if I want to write a little program for some reason then Cygwin's g++ is my only option, or the GNAT Ada95 compiler in GNUWin (I have it installed as well). These GNUWinII programs are more GUI-style programs which really Cygwin is mainly command-line based. I can't get by without Gimp and I have been using the GNUWin version for a couple years at work now.
Clickety Click
so i click the site, click the english flag next to the pretty picture, click programs and what's the first thing I see? Celestia (a beautiful planetarium) described as a 3D Game! sheesh have these people even run this software?
version 0.0002
this smacks in the face of EVERYTHING I have seen..
EVERY windows user I have met has no problem with stealing software. I constantly hear "can I have a copy of Office 2000? Visio? can I have a copy of Filemaker Pro for home? can I have a copy of Photoshop? etc.... they gladly steal software. and this is a sampling of 5 businesses that I contact on a regular basis... over 300 people and 99.997% of them have asked me to make illegal copies of software for them. I started to ask why.. and this is the string of responses I get.
They charge WAY too much for that.
I already PAID for windows. - this is my favorite
I only need it for a little bit.
I cant afford it.
Those companies make billions, they dont need my money.
While in the LUG I am a member of I asked the question about piracy... how many of them have a cracked copy of vmware, copies of Loki Games, etc...
I was almost attacked... First response was "That's stealing!"
You dont do that!
etc....
Linux users have more respect for software and software writers than windows users. why?? is it that the linux user is generally 40% higher in IQ? is it that a linux user is smarter and more educated than a windows user?
I have met some supposed windows users that are against software sharing... yet they sill asked me for a copy of a "neat" program that they dont want to shell out cash for.
Note: I am a IS/IT freelance person. I have access to a HUGE legal pool of software between the 3 companies I maintain... this is why I am asked.
My understanding is that this is about free software. This may not be a distribution for every user, but it is a good move.
For instance, my off-line HOME PC is better served by a concept like Windows than Linux. I don't need nor like to have all that functionality I wouldn't use at home, so it is a nightmare for me to configure a Linux system so it doesn't do all the stuff I don't want while overloading my CPU and hard disk.
Other people use Windows instead of Linux simply because it came preinstalled (together with driver and some application support for all the hardware and peripherals).
Complementing those applications with other free ones is a great possibility (there's nothing wrong with MS paint, but I prefer the Gimp). Switching to Linux would be way more difficult.
> People who use windows often pirate copies of commercial software so they don't need or want open source software.
Well, even if I wouldn't care about piracy, I wouldn't learn how to use some software that may not be available to me in the future (because I copied it from some friend instead of downloading it, and then I had to patch it with a crack specificaly made for that version blah blah). It is the same reason why I wouldn't learn a programming language unless it is ANSI or ISO or very widely used.
> Even if a an open source software was clearly superior to a windows equivalent (zope, apache, postgres etc) why make it so that it runs on windows.
Because (I hate to admit this since I hate MS with a passion) I like Windows.
Alex
Perhaps I just work with a better quality of computer users who are aware that piracy can result in getting slapped with huge fines for the organization.
But focusing on gratas as opposed to libertas is missing the point about why we need free software on Windows. By all means, I could be using and distributing gratas software that just fell off the back of the truck, but cost of ownership is only one small reason for adopting open source software.
So why would I want to promote open source software for windows?
1: Because I need software that I can print on CDs and pass out to dozens of students. Software that does not cripple its self after the end of the semester, software that they can install on multiple computers, software that spports existing standards, software that does not suck, software that will not advertise AOL or install spyware, software that will not leave me vulnerable to audits, suits or prosecution.
2: Security. I may be stuck with a proprietary operating system but that does not mean that I should be stuck with a proprietary word processor or email client that runs viruses. I want the hundreds of eyes auditing Mozilla and Open Office code.
3: Standards compliance. I can't expect students to design cross-browser standards compliant web services without using a standards compliant browser.