Google Windows Apps Coming To Linux

skaet writes "DesktopLinux.com reports that Google is working together with CodeWeavers to bring their photo editing and sharing program Picasa, formerly only available on Windows, over to Linux. From the article: 'The program is now in a limited beta test. If this program is successful, other Google applications will be following it to the Linux desktop, sources say. The Linux Picasa implementation includes the full feature set of the Windows Picasa 2.x software. It is not, strictly speaking, a port of Picasa to Linux. Instead, Linux Picasa combines Windows Picasa code and Wine technology to run Windows Picasa on Linux. This, however, will be transparent to Linux users, when they download, install, and run the free program on their systems.'"

Comments

Re:People will moan and bitch about more free stuf

[Nugget]

With Linux, on the other hand, the vast majority of software is not only completely free, it's open source!

I'm sure you realize this, but 99% of that free, open source software you love so much is not Linux-specific. In fact, it compiles and runs just fine on a Mac exactly like it does on any Unix or Unix-like platform. Mac users hardly feel "stuck" with anything, since they can choose to use native OS X software (which sometimes costs money) or any of the open source software which you mistakenly think of as "Linux software." Sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

It makes it difficult to work yourself into a froth of frustration, but the world isn't nearly as bipolar as you seem to believe it is. For open source to succeed it is not necessary for closed-source software to fail. Neither is the opposite true -- if open source software fails to increase in popularity it isn't necessarily the fault of the closed-source world.

Support open source all you want, but you'd be well-served by losing that ridiculous notion that "shunning closed, proprietary software" is doing anything at all to help open source software gain acceptance or improve.