Open Source & Windows

To support Windows or not, that is the question. At least it’s a topic of increasing debate amongst some in the open source community, most notably Aaron Seigo, a KDE hacker whose post from last week touched off a rather interesting /. debate. I can’t give the topic the time it deserves – as it’s a very complex issue with multiple angles to consider, but I did want to be sure to weigh in with my take on the question.

The fundamental position that Seigo is taking – at least in my opinion – is simple. The argument goes that by porting free applications – primarily designed to run on Unix variants – to Windows, the community is essentially undermining efforts to build acceptance of alternative platforms. Windows gets to draw on a wealth of native and ported applications, while its competitors are limited (for the most part) to what’s available solely for their platform.

He supports his contention by highlighting the inertia typical to Windows users – i.e. that users of Windows see little benefit to switching – and argues that by porting potentially must-have applications, such as Firefox, F/OSS developers only make this OS apathy more of an issue.

There is, I’d contend, an element of truth to this. Windows is, in some sense, receiving an unfair advantage in terms of application availability. But I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing for Linux on the desktop. Nor, apparently, is Alex Bosworth.

Here are a few of the questions I’d ask to try and formulate your own answer:

1. Microsoft’s applications currently and for the forseeable future will support only Windows – does the F/OSS community think this is this a strategy worth replicating?
2. In any desktop OS migration efforts, one of the biggest challenges is retraining users on new application sets. If IT shops can standardize on F/OSS application sets – say Firefox/OOo, what impact does this have on IT manager’s ability to seriously consider alternative platforms? (I’ve posted on this before here)
3. Why do people switch operating systems? Or put differently, is it plausible to believe that users will migrate from Windows to Linux just to get Firefox?
4. Generally speaking, where are F/OSS applications most competitive with Windows applications currently? Feature/function or cross-platform support?
5. What should the goal of application developers be – the widest possible market for their applications, or supporting a single platform?
6. As a long term play, does the F/OSS community believe that excluding platforms from support is a beneficial policy? If so, who does it benefit?
7. Why are people choosing Linux on the desktop today – application availability, or security, reliability, and the ability to modify the code to suit your own needs?
8. Last but not least, what’s in the best interests of users?

I’m sure you can deduce from my stance how I would answer the above, but I’m interested in your answers. Or if there are other questions that should be added to the list that I’m missing. What do you think?