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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: QT for Windows released under GPL
From:       Paul Temple <paul.temple () gmx ! net>
Date:       2005-02-09 17:32:07
Message-ID: 200502091832.08064.paul.temple () gmx ! net
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If anyone is interested in my opinion... ;)

If kde was available on windows, it _might_ turn some linux 
people to windows, as there are some applications, but 
especially drivers that don't have linux counterparts. It's 
still a sad thing in linux: in order to buy a notebook I need to 
check so many things to make sure linux supports all of 
firewire, bluetooth, graphics (not vesa), etc... "It ain't no 
fun".

But I think that would be just for the short term and just a very 
small number would really switch. I, and I think most of the 
users, use linux not only because of kde, though it's of course 
the coolest desktop... And some people might even get attracted 
to linux as they see how many great applications are available, 
at least if the nice infrastructure (kio, etc.), which is the 
most important thing in kde in my opinion, will be available 
there, too.

And if we get to the point, where windows and linux provide the 
same range of applications, people (IT decision makers, too) are 
really free to decide which os they want to use. And I think in 
the long term windows will loose many users then. That might be 
different if the market share of linux wasn't so small, but even 
then...

Linux has to solve the driver problem, that's a _real_ problem 
which can't be handled by any application (not counting windows 
emulators ;). And then (in the long term) linux won't loose more 
people to windows than it will gain from.
 
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