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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: QT for Windows released under GPL
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date:       2005-02-07 23:59:31
Message-ID: 200502071659.34001.aseigo () kde ! org
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On Monday 07 February 2005 04:11, Jason Keirstead wrote:
> Users and companies don't care what OS the applications run on - as long as
> they have the applications, the OS could for the most part be swapped out
> right from under them and they woudln't notice or care, as long as the
> applications did their job.

exactly. but you have to complete the circle of logic to see the potential for 
bad things to occur.

if 95%+ stay on windows because the apps are there we're screwed in the long 
run. we NEED a good portion of people on non-Windows platforms to keep the 
market open (read: open standards and development environments that work for 
us).

by "good portion of people" i mean something in the order of 15% market share 
before we can start to proclaim we have a safe harbour and an attractive 
proposition for ISVs. it's all about volume.

so if porting to win32 results in wooing good numbers win32 geeks to start 
developing and/or polishing open source software that (also) runs on Free 
platforms, or if this leverages large bodies of users over to Free platforms, 
we're all good. the danger lies in deciding that we don't care if the 
overwhelming majority of the desktop world runs on a base software stack 
(kernel -> native libs) that is openly hostile to Open Source developers.

THAT is the attitude i've been attempting to get people to examine and not 
simply gloss over. i've played devil's advocate quite a bit, but i think this 
is a very important issue for us to walk into with eyes wide open. done 
right, this can result in great things. done wrong, it will eventually 
cripple our efforts dramatically.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

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