Porting free software to Windows

Porting free software to Windows

Posted Dec 16, 2004 7:38 UTC (Thu) by pynm0001 (subscriber, #18379)
Parent article: Porting free software to Windows

I'm not sure if Aaron has access to the comments here, so I just wanted
to point out that his argument has very little to do with "forcing" users
to use a Free Operating System. Instead he is worried that if we totter
too closely over the edge of Windows that Microsoft will find a way to
pull the rug out from under us.

Hopefully he can explain it better than I am, but the gist of his
argument is that with little incentive to switch, most Windows users will
remain Windows users. Obviously it takes only a small percentage of
Windows-using KDE users to outnumber KDE users on other OSes. If enough
KDE users are running on Windows, KDE will end up beholden to a platform
controlled by a company which is very hostile to open source projects
such as KDE.

I myself am not quite sold on the doom-and-gloom at this point, as I
think there are a few technical problems that would prevent KDE for Win32
from becoming as good as KDE on X Windows, and I doubt Microsoft's
ability to severely screw up KDE on Windows without also inadvertently
breaking other apps.

However, I'm *absolutely convinced* that Aaron is sincere in his
argument, and a good many of his points are valid but unacknowledged by
those aching to burn him in effigy. So it depresses me to see the
negative reaction that he has received for even broaching the topic. I
was impressed at the quality of the article however given the crucifixion
Aaron received on Slashdot.

- Michael Pyne

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