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Recently (Dec 2004) there's been some outspoken people saying that Free Software applications on win32 and other proprietary platforms is a bad thing. Well I'm outspoken, so here's my opinion. People should switch to GNU/Linux because they value their freedom, not because there's more apps, or because the TCO is lower. If they switch because of these secondary reasons they will be nothing but a burden on Free Software. These people are the ones who are after a free lunch and frankly, we have enough trouble feeding each other without feeding them too. So how is Free Software on win32 a good thing then? Porting Free Software to win32 is a cheap way to give users the opportunity to experience freedom for themselves. They can directly compare their freedom to copy, modify and distribute Free Software to the tyranny of most closed source alternatives. Then they can make the choice to switch for the right reasons and be a productive member of our community.
Almahtar says: I agree. Also, I think the more free alternatives are available for non free platforms, the less barrier it is to move to free platforms. The primary reason I hear so far is "my apps only run on Windows". If the apps are available everywhere, we have a free market and people can choose their OS based on its real quality relative to its competition. Some may choose closed, some may choose open, but if their apps run on both at least they have the choice. css says: i think free software is good bot not completely free. it needs to escape from slavery of corporations or things like windows and some other effectively legal but not legal on real perspective. open source is necessary howewer .because peoples should able to hawe a choice to see what's the truth of complex systems. |