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Open Source on Windows - Boon or Bane for Linux?
A not-so anonymous Anonymous Coward puts this tough issue up for discussion: "There seem some more
determined
efforts underway currently
in some corners of the KDE project to port substantial parts of the software
stack to the MS Windows platform. These efforts are now met by fierce resistance on the part of some of their core developers. Aaron J. Seigo summarizes his reasoning in his blog:
'If the applications people want are available on Windows, they will tend to stick with Windows...by porting software to Windows, we eliminate the
majority of the competitive advantage of Free Software desktops in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of consumers while Microsoft has all the rope they need to shut the door once again on us ... Free Software desktop applications on Windows represent a no-win situation for Open Source, but
Open Source desktops on Free Software operating systems do.'" (Read more below.)
"Does it hurt the 'Linux to the Desktops!' battle fanfare, if Linux apps and other OSS are ported on a large-scale to MS Windows,
or will it rather have a 'pave the way' effect? Does it help to migrate enterprises and public sector units if users to Linux if users are already familiar with Firefox and OpenOffice.org from Windows, or does it take away the motivation to migrate at all? Is porting Unix desktop software counterproductive? Does it even help Microsoft and damage Windows users?"
If KDE is an app then it's a win for MS.
If KDE is a platform then it's a win for FOSS.
If Windows users aren't locked in to KDE they might choose based on the OS/desktop's own merits. Which means Windows wins. Poor KDE, maybe they should work on actually having a better product.
And who is anyone to tell a developer what platform to write for. Maybe they want to write an app that people will actually use. Otherwise what's the point?
If you just want to provide people with what they want, you should go ahead and port these things to Windows. If you are on some crusade to force people to switch to open source, then go ahead and restrict where they can use their applications. Just be aware that it is somewhat hypocritical: denying someone the ability to run OSS on a non-open OS is essentially restricting their freedom. Especially when your only reason to do so is philosophical, and not technological.
Yeah, it gets real old hearing from the Linux = OSS crowd. Linux has its own very real problems which is one of the many reasons that people with the complete move to Linux is not for everyone. The real question for the developers is do they have the bandwidth and experience to support a Windows port.
If you end up using OSS applications in your Windows machine, what's the incentive not to migrate to Linux? Sooner or later you'll have to upgrade or change the OS. At that point, you can pay Microsoft a tax, or just install Linux, which will be free (gratis and libre) and able to run all your apps. And then it will matter, because the issue won't be if you like one interface or another, but hard, cold cash.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
in the long run it will mean that users become more familiar with the types of applications available in open source. And more importantly they will become acquainted to the open source delivery channels.
This will mean that they will be more likely to try other open source apps and operating systems....especially Linux.
If KDE isn't compatible with my scanner than it's a win for Microsoft.
Currently, Microsoft has the advantage in driver support from the manufacturers of PC peripherals. Many manufacturers refuse to port their drivers to a Free operating system and refuse further to disclose specifications that free software developers would find useful in writing a driver.
I think it's great that monolithic, cross-platform applications like Firefox and OpenOffice.org remain cross-platform, integrating as necessary with the underlying operating system.
:-/
Unfortunately, something like KDE is in a way part of that operating system itself - while porting, say, the rendering engine of Konqueror to Windows and giving it a Windows front-end could be useful, a full-scale port of Konqueror with all the KDE support libraries underneath would frequently involve reinventing and replacing wheels already present in Windows.
Things like file selectors, the print subsystem, network abstraction and so on - while incredibly useful features for KDE to provide to its applications, they're generally available in different forms on other non-UNIX operating systems (and MacOS X). It makes more sense to integrate with the platform's existing facilities, giving the users a more consistent interface, rather than present them with a whole new interface for certain tasks.
It's great that many Open Source applications are cross-platform, but the best cross-platform things are those which are carefully tailored to each system...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
...but for now there is Linux.
Conversely, I'm just as unhappy about MS apps being ported to Linux.
We really need a purely alternative solution to MS.
I have users that just can *not* run an MS box thanks to the crippling effects of Malware, Spyware, Adware.
Solution, if the user simply wants email, browsing and letter typing, Linux is what I put in now.
Gone are the need to run 4 spyware programs and 2 Virus scanners just to keep things running.
With a little retraining on Linux, I now don't have to baby-sit and reinstall every 2 weeks.
MS is becomeing more of a Guru OS than Linux from the end-users perspective just because you have to run such a complicated series of diversive apps to keep it running once connected to the Internet.
"we eliminate the majority of the competitive advantage of Free Software desktops in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of consumers" KDE ain't no killer app - nothing you can do with it you can't do on Windows with a different set of software. Half Life 2 on Linux only, now that would have been a killer app. I'm with all those here who say that more cross-platform software can only help users migrate. Hell, when the software is no longer an obstacle, you might even get users migrating because of the choice of window managers. Shallow, but that's what got my attention!
There is no way that I would be using Linux at all without OSS ports to windows. I still use Windows for my desktop, but I use *nix exclusively for my servers. If you can show that there are really cool apps to the windows users, and keep upgrading the quality development of the open source OS (not going to start a distro war), maybe they will switch. It will take time. Personally, my switching point may be the next MS upgrade cycle. Although grass roots is the starting point, the main gains are going to come from changes at the university and corporate level. Home users mainly use what they use at work/school.
Wait...I seem to remember no small amount of condemnation directed towards Microsoft for trying to keep their customer base captive by making their technology interdependent...You need Outlook to use Exchange, you need Windows to use Outlook, etc. So what the hell is this crap about not wanting to port KDE to Windows because then people wouldn't have to run Linux? It seems like the same idiotic mentality.
Look, if you want people to run your software, MAKE GOOD SOFTWARE. Period. Granted, other things have to follow that, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get people to try something that works and stick with it (Firefox anyone?) than it is to force garbage down their throat. Especially without gigabucks to spend on advertising, against a company that spends petabucks on advertising.
And by the way, why is it still considered a viable option to get people to dive headfirst into OSS...platform, OS, GUI, apps, the whole lot at once? What's wrong with just giving them one part at a time? I would think that getting them accustomed to it without having to leave everything familiar and known to them behind at once would be a good thing, not a bad one.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Since people tend to buy new PCs every 3 years or so and if an OS that runs all their favourite apps is available on a PC that is $100 cheaper because it doesn't have Windows XP on it, they might very well buy that.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
Since when is FOSS about *restricting* choice?
Isn't anyone here old enough to remember the FSF boycott of all Apple products? As a long-time Mac user, I remember wondering why no one had ported stuff like GCC or Emacs to my system (and don't give me the old "no command line" saw; MPW was already in existence for years). I've always felt that the only reason FSF has never once announced a similar boycott against Microsoft was because that would have actually hampered the adoption of FOSS, in other words because they were too gutless to take a principled stand when it really mattered. Meanwhile, few developers could get their hands dirty on the classic Macintosh while DJGPP was a staple in the DOS world.
Open source is NOT about linux. I use linux 90% of the time and solaris 10% of the time. About 90% of the apps I use on Solaris are GNU. Solaris isn't free.
Free software is about free software, not linux. If someone wants to port software to any platform whatever I will support them fully. I use windows when I have to and the more free apps I can find the better. I want portablility, reliability and quality in my computers. Spreading/porting or developing OSS for windows is a win-win situation. M$ makes far more money from Office than from Windows, so it stands to reason that getting competition onto the windows desktop is good for OSS.
Microsoft gets valid competition and is forced to make a better product and hopefully lower their prices. Users get a choice. OSS gets more people paying attention. Companies save money. KDE gets more developers and experience with portability.
I really think anyone who wants to use OSS as a tool to beat up on M$ is missing the whole point of OSS to begin with. Sure, we can all rant and rave about how bad Billy is and gripe about the srongarm tactics of M$ but OSS is about codebase, community and progress, none of which give a rats ass about M$.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
What we have seen with our own project, the Plone Content Management System is that people very often use Windows as their evaluation platform. Since it is so simple for them to download, double-click the installer and have a Plone site up and running in a few minutes, they actually find that Plone is a good alternative to whatever proprietary solution they are using or considering. They get hands-on experience without the hassle of setting up a separate server to test it.
The most common scenario we see is organizations that are evaluating or currently using MS Sharepoint, and they find Plone as a much more compelling and useful system for them, regardless of cost.
When they can then get rid of the Windows box they purchased to run the other system, and install Linux on it, and not have to reboot the server every night just to keep it stable - they couldn't be happier.
While I agree with the sentiment that porting exclusively Linux apps to Windows may lessen the chances of someone switching from a MS platform to a Linux system, I feel that open source licensing, and efforts, do in fact work very well for Windows.
Examples? Sure... Off the top of my head, AutoHotKey is one of the best pieces of software I've found for Windows, and it's entirely open source. It has a thriving user community, it beats its commercial rivals (Automate by Unisyn, for example) in almost every way, and does things that the its competitors can only dream of doing, in a timely and organized manner.
To me, it's proof that open source isn't a bad thing on Windows. Open source is simply a license (in a nutshell), and it should not be used to determine what's released on what platform IMHO. If you truly believe that software should be free, than why is it such a concern when it's ported to a MS OS?
I do agree that porting desktop managers and the like has the potential to decrease the amount of people switching exclusively to Linux, as you can now, for example, reap the benefits of KDE and similar apps (Cygwin anyone), without the need to completely redo your PC setup, but I don't think that open source ports are a bad thing overall.
And really... I think that this whole article is just to stir up the whole anti-MS rage among us Slashdot readers, since none of the debate here will make any difference.
The software's been developed, it's been released as open source, and anyone can port it to whatever platform they want to. No amount of logic, complaining, or rationale can or will change this. Perhaps this discussion should have taken place before the software was released, or the open source licenses were developed, but it wasn't, and so we are where we are.
Now if the discussion were about how to structure future licensing, and or development models, than I think it's a worthwhile endeavor, but why work ourselves up into a frenzy over the license being used as it was intended to be used? The software's free, and anyone can do what they want with it, provided they adhere to its terms, and they make their changes available to anyone who wants them.
Face it... The system's working as it was intended to. Next topic...
For one thing, I don't think people come to linux for the apps. IMHO the FOSS desktop applications tend to be inferior to their proprietary counterparts. While yes, you do have to pay for the latter, they also tend to be higher quality, more polished, and have more/better features.
If this isn't the case, why are we always playing "catch-up" and creating FOSS versions of pay software?
Sorry, people don't come to linux for the apps. I think the migrations is for primarily these reasons:
People don't like paying for anything.
People don't like Microsoft.
They can settle for the products that Linux has; because while inferior, they get the job done.
Don't get me wrong, not ALL linux software is inferior of course, several projects stand out from the crowd and excel and are better than their pay counterparts: Firefox, Thunderbird, Apache, etc.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
The biggest problem with the lay-person and OSS is that people simply don't believe it. It's "too good to be true" in the eyes of most and expect there to be a catch.
I can't tell you how many times someone was reluctant to try RedHat Linux simply because they thought it would be piracy. "But it's sold in a box as Fry's!" "Yeah so? You can also download it for free from their site and burn it to a CD yourself... some people just like to have the box, labelled CDs and a manual and that's what you're paying for..." They don't get it. My own brother protested that GPG and/or OpenOffice.org couldn't be used in a business setting because of licensing issues. I thought he was crazy but I checked it anyway... not issues I could tell.
People REALLY don't want to believe it's real because it flies in the face of what they are comfortable with -- software that costs them money.
So in that respect, OSS on Windows is a definite Win for Linux because the more people use OSS for Windows, the more the will later be inclined to using Linux since it will eventually run all of the software to which they are accustomed....just more stable, less vulnerable and a lot more cool.
Company A and City B might be adopting OSS into their systems but it works side-by-side with other "custom apps" that are deployed in various places. It's not at all unusual to have unusual software in a business setting...it's getting into the home and casual user that I think is the biggest blocker right now. I'm not sure what the state of "end-user Linux" is right now, but I'm guessing it's not where it should be just yet... could be wrong...
Open source is not about windows or linux. Linux happens to be open source. Windows happens not to be. Why should anybody have any qualms about running open source apps on windows. Why should anybody care what app runs where.
If more people choose open source alternatives because they are becoming available on windows, all the power to them. If, in turn, more open source applications are started because of a more inclusive user base, then we all win.
Nothing prevents open-source software from being run on a proprietary-code operating system. I don't hear people complaining that Firefox is available in a windows version. I don't hear people complaining that linux is allowed to run a proprietary ALPHA processor. These things are always applauded everywhere else.
The main thing Microsoft has going for them is Office; not Windows and not IE. Business NEED Office, and for that they need windows, and with that comes IE. If Windows users become more accepting to OSS on their machines, if they see the quality that such software can have before dismissing it as "free and therefore crap", they may be more likely to try an open source alternative to Office. If Office wanes, then Windows wanes. Why then shouldn't Linux followers push more open source software to windows. As soon as people realize that they can have a "free" OS, a "free" office suite, and a "free" development environment, all of which working as well or better than the proprietary apps, then they are more likely to give Linux or another open source operating system a second look.
Lock-in works in your favor if you're the biggest fish in the pond. Otherwise, it tends to work against you.
If Firefox and OpenOffice were only availble on non-Windows platforms, almost no-one would ever switch to Linux, because everyone would be fully locked into IE-specific HTML and Word documents.
A better strategy is to get some Windows users to start using Firefox and OpenOffice --- much easier than forcing them to switch everything at once --- and because of network effects, that will lower everyone's cost of switching to Linux.
As evidenced by the title of the article. Is this about the success of Linux-based operating systems, or is it about the success of Free Software/Open Source Software (FOSS)?
At the moment my preferred operating system is GNU/Linux. But I personally could care less about the ultimate success or failure of Linux and GNU per se. What I desire is the victory of FOSS over proprietary software. In fact I see this victory as inevitable. I support it with minor efforts when I can, although seeing the triumph of FOSS as inevitable means I do not feel the need to completely abandon or wage war on proprietary software at present.
The question of FOSS vs. proprietary software makes sense. The question of Windows vs. Linux makes sense. To me, the question of Windows vs. FOSS, posed by the article in the text, does not make that much sense. I desire FOSS to take over not because of anything specific I have against Windows, but because of what I have against proprietary software. If GNU/Linux died but FOSS prevailed through ReactOS (Open Source Windows NT/2000/XP clone, for those who haven't read the news lately), I would be content. (Although only because ReactOS will surely support a POSIX layer and/or Cygwin so I can get the UNIXy goodness I love as a geek.)
The apps I want can run pretty much on any operating system. From /bin/ls to Firefox to perl, I can pretty much make anything run on any hardware under any OS. (At least, as long as I have access to Cygwin. And Cygwin is proof-of-concept to show how these apps could be made to run on an OS that was neither UNIX nor Windows, if such a beast still existed any more.) Thus, the issue of which operating system will win out is not that big a deal to me any more as long as the OS is a free one! Yes, Windows has some design and security issues. But if the winning operating system were a free Windows (either through ReactOS or Microsoft actually releasing Windows as FOSS), it could be fixed by virtue of the fact that it would be free. (Yeah, I know; you and I would prefer to stick with UNIX for many reasons. After all, why reinvent the wheel? But that's a secondary concern to me.)
So, let's look at history for a minute. When Richard Stallman launched the GNU movement, there were no free operating systems for him to build on. (Barring ITS, which I'm not entirely sure was free, and which he recognized would never be acceptable to the general software using public.) So he chose a proprietary operating system that he thought would stand the greatest success and begin to replace it with free software, piece by piece. In the end he replaced almost every component with GNU utilities and, as we know, when development stalled on the GNU kernel somebody else who was interested stepped in and donated a Free UNIX kernel ... and the rest was history. Suddenly the world finally had a Free Operating system (and with three BSDs, AtheOS, FreeDOS, and a handful of other alternatives, the world now has many, many Free Operating systems in various states of viability).
Until such time as a completely Free operating system was available, the GNU project built, tested, and ran each GNU component on proprietary operating systems. In fact it was the attempt to keep such software portable to the vast incompatible variety of proprietary UNIX implementations that led to the development of GNU autoconfig, the program that writes those handy configure scripts some of us use every day.
The general philosophy was that the author or maintainer of a component would make a decent level of effort toward keeping a Free component running on reasonably recent proprietary operating systems, assisted by those who had a vested interest in doing so. If a particular developer thought AIX 3.2 was just too wonky to support, he'd leave it out of the supported systems list and make no effort on it. Anybody else could pick it up and run with it. If their changes to port said component to AIX 3.2 fit in well with the rest
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
The lack of many business applications - although this is slowly becoming better. A lot of our choices are restricted to Windows and sometimes flavors of Unix are supported - but we still have probably over 100 apps that are Windows only that we have to support. Some stuff like enterprise tax software for instance.
The other thing is game support. The main reason I have a computer at home is to access school stuff - which only works with IE (this is more the fault of the school probably - but it still means I can't exclusively use Mozilla or Linux). After that follows gaming. I want to be able to go to GameStop or whatever the local store is and get Linux games. The day that they release a must have game on Linux but not Windows - I think you'll see a lot of gamers think about switching.
The last thing is a personal thing that I don't think most other people care about. I like to be able to go out to any site and look for Windows XXX - and any support information I find is fairly consistent. When I go to a *nix site - it might work for my distribution, or it might not. Distributions of Linux are sometimes as different as totally different operating systems. This isn't exactly a big deal but something to think about.
"Some of these companies (no one can say how many of course) would have switched to Linux if it was the only way to have reasonably secure web browsing."
...
I would have to see some facts before I can really accept this statement. This is a pretty bold premise to accept. More reasonably they just block web browsing. Sorry but that is the way it works.
"I guess it boils down to whether providing open source to the largest number of people is more important to the movement than upsetting MS's OS dominance and having an open OS to build from."
You nailed it initially. You see OSS is all about freedom - not about battling some behemoth company. Period. While it is a bonus that it is hurting the company everyone loves to hate that is NOT the goal of OSS. It is about empowering you with freedom in the context of software.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
I have read the full article, and have read many of the comments as well. But I think that you are missing a key issue. In one of the comments you made, you suggested that users will be willing to give up the single program that they can't get under a free operating system, if the programs that do run under the free operating system are superior. Even if we accept this as true, this only works if the single application in question is one that the user cannot live without. In recent months, I have been forced to go back from using FreeBSD to Windows XP primarily because the speech recognition software that I need to produce 2000 words per day does not currently exist under a free operating system. The big question on my mind is that why should the fact that I am locked into a specific application that runs on Windows, lock me into using a proprietary office suite, statistics package, programming language, or typesetting program?
I have run into a few examples of major deal breakers. For many of my colleagues EndNote is one of the major deal-breakers. And adoption of open office is hindered by multiple perceived deficiencies. But I think that one of the major problems with the argument that most people choose their operating system based on applications, is that that is not how things work. People choose their operating systems based on culture, and then go about trying to discover what applications are available to meet their needs.
It may get lost in all the other posts, but I'm the perfect case of a Windows user who wants very much to switch to Linux, but hasn't in large part because of the painful application switch.
Because critical OSS is available on both platforms I have begun to take steps towards Linux (or for that matter FreeBSD/OSX/whatever). I've tested porting my mail from Outlook to Thunderbird. I've started using Firefox. I'm now using OpenOffice, and have ported my active docs to it. Perhaps next I'll try GAIM or something for IM (use Trillian now). Etc. In a few weeks or a month, there may be no reason not to switch to Linux. (It should be noted that I am not inexperienced with Linux, I have administrated 5-10 Linux servers and even had a Linux desktop or two.)
So, my point is just that, the availability of these high quality OSS allows me to achieve my goal of getting off Windows in a gradual, organized manner (rather than just making the jump and hoping for the best). I certainly understand the argument against making key OSS available to Windows users, and that approach may even be the best for the long term conversion of souls. But... In my situation, it is helping me switch.
Don't vote for Eugene Papansanovich for Congress!
HUH??!! Obviously you've never used MPlayer before. Show me one player, under Windows that will play Quicktime, RealMedia, RTSP, DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, any type of AVI, Mastroka, OMG, MP3, MP4, AAC, ... Shall I go on? You would need a handful of programs under Windows to do all of them. Oh and don't forget you can use it to encode any format to any other format as well.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
"With an entirely cross-platform software stack the OS becomes the least important part of the system, and can be swapped out at will.
The ap is what has locked users into the ms os. backwards comptibility has been ms' marketing siren song. now with winxp, ms has made using my bosses financial software an increadible pain. we are running a seperate win98 machine next to the winxp machine. MS support thought this was a fine idea. except for the three days it took me to track down the drivers for a pc we got from the recycling center.
true crossplatform software could be the end of the closed source OS
"He's a real midnight golfer"
I think you're just tuned into the wrong demographic. I am the kind of person the parent was working for.
I enjoy what Linux stands for, and would like to gradually migrate to using it full time, but to be honest I'm quite busy. Jumping in neck-deep just isn't a viable option because of all the things I do on a daily basis I've got to work out how they'll work in Linux and using OSS. Now, if I could start installing all the little apps one at a time on my Windows box to get used to how they work, after awhile, it would be a simple matter to transition over.
As it stands, it'll be quite some time before I'm using Linux for my primary machine. It'll be relegated to hobby status or the "when I have time" machine that I run.
This is not a sig.
Gaming is a big one. I've always felt that the opensource world needs a solid FPS user-driven game system. You look at the massive following that games like Quake, Half-Life, and UT get - the thing that gives them their long life is the mods, which is the perfect example of a player-driven community. The problem is that mod-devs these days are modeller-oriented who're used to pirating 3DSMax and so aren't really very Linuxy people. Currently, the most mod-oriented complete FPS game on the free software side is FreeDoom. OpenQuartz doesn't have a singleplayer mode to speak of (not even a Q3 style ladder), and still has all of the horrible usability issues associated with playing mods on Quake (command-line _everything_). Plus, both of these games have paleolithic graphics and butt-ugly models.
The OS world has an advantage, and that is maintenance: where a closed FPS game will stagnate, an open FPS game can keep abreast of new technology by adding support for newer file formats, newer engine features, etc. The problem is that no OSS FPS gaming project has reached "critical mass" like FireFox and OOo have, where users become advocates and developers flock to develop extensions and mods for the project.
Quake 3 is going OSS soon. Q3 is unique in that it was the first Id engine where the mod experience wasn't a console-oriented hack for the end-user. Q3 mods were in the menu, and had their own in-game configuration screens. This means that you could release a Q3-based package game that included dozens of mods with no RTFM required.
The problem is twofold: first, make a FreeQ3 project to replace the core Q3 gamedata, making it suitable for redistibution (like OQ and FreeDoom did), but not fugly this time. This should be easier than it was for Q3 and OQ, as there are numerous independant modellers who've made simple replacements for all the main models - these were much more rare on Q1 and Doom.
Second, get a few IP-issue-less modders to agree to allow their mods to be redistributed with your Q3 remake. Then, you've got a freely redistibutable package that's not just a replacement for Q3, but a superset of it - the bundled mods would far supercede the original.
This would, in turn, attract a real developerbase, as you have a free platform available and the option of becoming a "bundled mod" as a goal for devs. OSS coders would continue to do what they do, making new engine extensions and whatnot, like has been done with Doom, Q1, and Q2, but this time you'd be able to have a real base of content developers behind you, which is what the first two remakes really lacked.
In the end, the project would really exist on 3 fronts, and all of them would be crucial: first, the task of replacing Q3 media - I understand this is already underway. But when that's complete, that's not the end. Second, and this is the part that most people forget: get some prominent community mods bundled into the project, and release it as an ISO. That way, players get more than just a game, they get a full "game distro" - much like how Linux Distros offer you more than just the kernel and a desktop. Third, do the usual linux-geek thing of maintaining the project by slapping on normal-mapping and rigid-body-physics and all the other bells & whistles into the engine for modders to use, bringing it up to code with newer engines.
Then bundle the whole sucker in with Fedora and solidify the concept of Linux As A Gaming Platform.