Windows

How To Kill Open Source

Software

• Posted by Rob (#1) on December 9, 2004 11:56 CET

On Planet KDE, Aaron argues that porting open source applications to Windows is pretty much a bad idea. I agree.

While some people may feel more comfortable making the switch to an open source OS because they can then keep familiar applications, the trick will never work unless all applications users want are available. And forget about that. For example, we'll never get the gamers unless Walmart throws in a Playstation with their Linspire offer.

Extra market share might be attractive for commercial entities involved with open source software, but the community itself has little to gain from it. It won't improve interoperability for those who do use an open source platform and merely creates new problem areas for those who don't.

Let's focus on working for those users who have already supported us for years. Going out of our way to make everyone like us just makes us look greedy and needy.

• PermaLink: How To Kill Open Source
• Tags: KDE, Windows, Linux
• Post comment