Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

No Respect for Windows Open Source

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the open-source-is-as-open-source-does dept.

man_of_mr_e writes "Shaun Walker, one of the founding developers of the DotNetNuke Portal/CMS has written an interesting piece about Open Source software on the Windows platform. "It's hard being an open source project on the Microsoft platform. Because no matter how hard you try to exemplify true open source ideals, you will not get any respect from the non-Microsoft community." He also says "There are Open Source zealots who believe that unless an application is part of a stack which includes 100% Open Source services and components, that it can not claim to be Open Source. [...] But does this "stack" argument actually make any sense?""

8 of 551 comments (clear)

  1. Open source is... by Sinryc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Open source is open source, no matter what platform. Just because you use Windows does not mean that you beleive that everything should be DRMed or closed. If you write something open souce, you know what, thats good enough for me.

    --
    Yay, I have a sig.
    1. Re:Open source is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Open source is open source, no matter what platform. Just because you use Windows does not mean that you beleive that everything should be DRMed or closed. If you write something open souce, you know what, thats good enough for me.

      The problem arises when a particular free, open source app relies on a proprietary library. Then in order to modify/compile the source, you need the proprietary lib (which costs money and is usually not modifiable), thus negating the "free and open" part of the situation.

    2. Re:Open source is... by zsau · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing is, Free Software vs Open Source is precisely what this is about. DotNetNuke is clearely properly open source, and another open source developer couldn't criticise him because of that, unless they misunderstand what open source is.

      A free software developer, tho, could; he's almost as bad as a proprietery software developer--possibly worse--because, even though there's an adequate (perhaps not perfect) environment for which Shaun Walker could've written his tool using solely free software, he's encouraging people to stick with the proprietry base. His software is one of the temptations that we need to avoid if we're to obtain a fully free-software world.

      So yes: As an open-source developer, Walker has a legitimate complaint. As a free-software developer, he doesn't.

      (In case you're wondering, no, I have no idea how to spell "propriet[|a|e]ry".)

      --
      Look out!
  2. Not true by gregbains · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Considering still 90% of people, inc me, use a Windows environment, having your software work on it is not a bad idea, unless you want to cut 90% of your market off without even trying. Get people onto free open source software and they may try your OS. I wouldn't have tried Linux if I hadn't tried OSS such as Firefox/OO, yes it's silly but I didn't know about it before them.

  3. Let me rephrase it a bit... by Memophage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless an application is running on a system in which the processor design, motherboard schematics and BIOS firmware are 100% Open Source, it can not claim to be Open Source.

    Sound reasonable?

  4. Idiotic by dshaw858 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm usually very understanding of people defending linux, unix, bsd... and in fact, I'm an avid NetBSD user myself. However, people who don't support open source software on Microsoft platforms are really just hurting themselves. For example, how can one argue against the "low quality of open sourced software" to a Windows user, who cannot try any open source software themselves? Mozilla Firefox has helped immensely in this regard, showing how open source software can truly trump proprietary software.

    I'm all for open source operating systems, but let's be realistic here: zealots who don't respect open source efforts on Windows are not only being stubborn, but are hurting their treasured cause.

    - dshaw

  5. Re:A lot like Star Trek... by Bogtha · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nobody should be promoting the use of VBScript or whatever that crappy Basic derivitive is that people use to write ASP

    ASP is a language-independent framework. While VBScript is popular, there are two languages shipped by default, JScript being the other. You can also install other components to allow you to use other languages, such as ActiveState's PerlScript. In this particular case, it's VB.NET, which (I believe) is substantially better than traditional ASP VBScript.

    I've converted a lot of this garbage to PHP/Perl, and everything I've seen written using ASP has been absolutely horrific - the worst, least optimised crap I've ever seen

    With all due respect, that particular complaint doesn't mean much when you are converting it to Perl and PHP, seeing as that's the way a good portion of the rest of the world feels about those languages too.

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  6. Beyond the FUD by Draconix · · Score: 5, Informative

    (Meh, sorry to those I modded up, but I need to say this.) The article is (possibly intentionally) vague on what they mean by 'Windows OSS projects.' If you read into what DotNetNuke actually is, you'll discover that it is a Windows-only OSS project built on the .NET framework, and that they appear to be partly sponsored by Microsoft itself. The article is referring to Windows-only OSS projects, not OSS projects with Windows versions.

    Though I imagine projects like VLC, Freeciv, and Gaim occasionally have someone whining about their supporting windows, that's not what this is talking about, and frankly, where DotNetNuke is concerned, I'm with the 'zealots', despite having nothing against proprietary software. OSS has built up a strong reputation for being cross-platform, so an OSS project that's for Windows-only and is dependant on Microsoft technology is understandably going be frowned upon by OSS purists. Windows-only OSS developers are, arguably, not helping the OSS communities much, and they are especially detrimental to the spread of Open-Source and Open-Source-based operating systems. It's not showing Windows users that they have something nifty that they could still have if they decided to try linux or get a Mac, it's just further miring people in the Windows platform.

    Now, are these people against DotNetNuke still looking so much like zealots, or are they perhaps starting to look more like people against Microsoft who see this as yet another boost to Microsoft's power?

    --
    By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.