Would you use Windows if it was GPL?
In my last post, several people accused me of being anti-Microsoft. This is not true at all! I believe that Microsoft makes good products. Do you think they could attain a 95% market share without making a good product? That is not the way a market economy works.
What I am opposed to are arbitrary restrictions being placed on the software I use. Can you imagine a case where my Linux operating system locks me out for no good reason? Perhaps a message that says "We're sorry, but the Penguin Kingdom has decided that you have not given them enough herring. Access denied."
This chain of events has got me thinking about Windows and Linux. Specifically, would you use Windows if it was licensed by the GPL? Windows would just be another open source operating system to choose from. Would you choose it? It has great hardware and application support, and most of your users already know how to operate it. You could choose to run only open source applications on it, or you could purchase proprietary applications if you wanted. (CNR is supposed to offer this same functionality in Linux, but it seems as if nothing is happening with CNR. Any updates on this?)
What reasons would you have to NOT run Windows if it was GPL? Some might say security, but I believe Windows Vista has a similar level of security as current Linux distros. Would you not use Windows simply because it USED to be a proprietary operating system that placed many restrictions on its use?
I believe that Linux would be greatly suppressed if Windows ever became GPL software. Don't worry about this happening, because it probably never will. I predict that Windows will be forced to continually lower its price to compete with Linux, and perhaps someday giving their software away. I have no idea why they thought they could charge even more money for Vista, that just blows my mind away. When a competitor sells an equivalent product at a lower price, you are forced to lower your prices. This is called a "price-war", and you can see a good example in AMD and Intel.
If Windows was ever released as a "free" product, I still would not use it. However, I think I would use Windows if it was GPL. At least then I would be able to easily setup my dual-monitors, unlike in Ubuntu where I have to manually edit my xorg.conf file. (Please fix this! Look at what Fedora has done!)
What I am opposed to are arbitrary restrictions being placed on the software I use. Can you imagine a case where my Linux operating system locks me out for no good reason? Perhaps a message that says "We're sorry, but the Penguin Kingdom has decided that you have not given them enough herring. Access denied."
This chain of events has got me thinking about Windows and Linux. Specifically, would you use Windows if it was licensed by the GPL? Windows would just be another open source operating system to choose from. Would you choose it? It has great hardware and application support, and most of your users already know how to operate it. You could choose to run only open source applications on it, or you could purchase proprietary applications if you wanted. (CNR is supposed to offer this same functionality in Linux, but it seems as if nothing is happening with CNR. Any updates on this?)
What reasons would you have to NOT run Windows if it was GPL? Some might say security, but I believe Windows Vista has a similar level of security as current Linux distros. Would you not use Windows simply because it USED to be a proprietary operating system that placed many restrictions on its use?
I believe that Linux would be greatly suppressed if Windows ever became GPL software. Don't worry about this happening, because it probably never will. I predict that Windows will be forced to continually lower its price to compete with Linux, and perhaps someday giving their software away. I have no idea why they thought they could charge even more money for Vista, that just blows my mind away. When a competitor sells an equivalent product at a lower price, you are forced to lower your prices. This is called a "price-war", and you can see a good example in AMD and Intel.
If Windows was ever released as a "free" product, I still would not use it. However, I think I would use Windows if it was GPL. At least then I would be able to easily setup my dual-monitors, unlike in Ubuntu where I have to manually edit my xorg.conf file. (Please fix this! Look at what Fedora has done!)
Likely I wouldn't.
ReplyDeleteI have quite a lot of experience with Windows products, began using Windows 95 when I was 8 years old, and every version, from 95 to Vista, had its set of problems.
Just making it GPL will not magically fix bugs and security flaws.
I would not use windows even if it was free as in freedom. I prefer the Linux/Unix way more then they windows approach. everytime I use windows i feel restricted and handicapped.
ReplyDeleteLikewise i feel that linux is a much more stable platform (*especially* for servers). Windows being free or not would change anything about that.
I wouldn't use it either. One of the main reasons I switched to linux, was because I wanted to learn more about the unix way of doing things. Now that I have, I believe its a fair bit better, and wouldn't want to go back.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I like... make that love the command line. Over the last year, I've become comfortable doing things over it. Writing scripts to make my life easier, apt-getting the latest and greatest apps, and sshing to my friends machines to perform tasks I cant on mine.
The architecture of things is what makes me choose Linux over Windows mainly. I absolutely love that its open source as well :) Overall, its pretty good to ideal for me, and I would miss too many things if I were to switch back to Windows.
First off, you said: "I believe that Microsoft makes good products. Do you think they could attain a 95% market share without making a good product? That is not the way a market economy works."
ReplyDeleteI don't think it goes that way at all. If the market is saturated with one product and people or companies are locked in with them (a la contract) and/or they have no or limited knowledge that there ARE alternatives, then the market stays with Microsoft whether or not their product is good or not.
As for my using Microsoft if it were GPL. I would if they: Move to the linux kernel or make a new. I can't stand theirs. Also, allow other to contribute without locking people out and still keeping it untouched by noone but insiders (as some open source companies do). And finally, make things more cross-compatible with other OSs. If they are not worried about loosing much market share to open source (as they have said time and time again) then they should embrace and support it along with Mac. Overall, things need to become more integrated across all platforms.
I was about to post a reply to your first paragraph but Jimbo2150 beat me to it. They got their market share by shady tactics and unfairly locking people into contracts. They mostly use false fears to try to prevent people moving away (e.g. the "Total Cost of Ownership" BS ).
ReplyDeleteAs for the fate of CNR, I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but it looks as though they're trying to roll it out with Freespie 2.0, which will be launched in May. Presumably, the Ubuntu and other distro plugins will also become available around that time or soon after. (info from various CNR-centric forums, like the main one at CNR.com, and the thread at ubuntuforums.org, etc.)
ReplyDeleteI absolutely detest the file structure in Windows. I would not use it for that reason (among the most obvious ones).
ReplyDeleteWindows has 95% of the market because it preinstalled on most machines and few people realize they have a choice imho.
I am using Windows Vista as my only operating system. I've used Linux for years as my only operating system and I came back to Windows because it offers features that do not have adequate equivalents on any Linux distribution. In other words: because Windows is better. And I don't even need to run any commercial applications that are not available for Linux... It was eventually a rather rational decision to give the Ubuntu a kick.. My copy of Vista is legal and I was one of the fortunate ones to get mine actually for free.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, I would use Windows as GPL'd as well.
Maybe the Kernel if I still can Use GNU/Gnome and apt-get. I hate to manually upgrade software on Windows!
ReplyDeleteNo, I wouldn't. I got sick of having to reinstall the OS at least once a year, not to mention the crashes.
ReplyDeletePlus, I'm a Unix guy. When I did run Windows I always had to install Cygwin to get the functionality I wanted. Why not just run Unix to start with?
I sure wouldn't,
ReplyDeletesince I've changed to linux I've become addicted to it, I work so much faster/better on linux then I ever have on windows.
I just love the choice you have on linux, the command line, apt-get/emerge/..., stability,...
Do I think windows has a great product, it's not bad, but it has to many little flaws, that annoy me way too much !
As others have pointed out, making Windows GPL won't magically solve all of its design and implementation flaws. Markets only pick good products when they have good information, otherwise they pick the product with the best marketing. See "The Market for Lemons".
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
It'd probably take at least 4 years before I'd be willing to use Windows. Even then I'm not sure I would. I'm betting a GPL Windows would face the same multi-year cleanup Mozilla did. The only reason Mozilla survived was Microsoft abandoned IE. Linux, on the other hand, would continue to improve light years faster than Windows. By the time Windows was high enough quality to use, It'd be so ancient no one would bother for anything but legacy systems.
If they released it as GPL today it would still be a steaming pile. But it might improve rapidly and I might use it in a few years.
ReplyDeleteBut then again I probably wouldn't. Why? Because if it was GPL then all that "super hardware support" would make its way into the other free operating systems. WINE would progress in leaps and bounds. Pretty soon nobody would have to run Windows any more, and it would have to compete on a level playing field. I think Linux is better poised to win a level playing field battle, or at least to win the battle for _my_ usership.
If Windows were already GPL, it would not be what it is now, so that's like asking "would you like to live in Communist Russia if it was a democracy?"
I honestly don't know...I will admit to liking XP, for the most part. Even though it crashed every once in a while, it worked fine for me. (I still dual boot with it, but don't use it very often any more) One of my reasons for switching was because of Vista and their business practices. I'm not comfortable with their DRM policies, plus that would mean I'd have to ditch my computers to use it. (One's 5 years old and the other is 10 years old) Both are still good machines and once Linux was installed on them their performances drastically improved. (and that's not a small feat for a PII :) )
ReplyDeleteI find now that I've been using Ubuntu for roughly 4 months, I like the fact that I can switch out different windows managers, configure things the way I want them, instead of stuck with the XP defaults. I also find that if something does go wrong in Ubuntu, the errors aren't as cryptic...some .dll died somewhere and I have to figure out what it means and what the answer is...MS's help database never seems to be very helpful anyway..or if I have to reinstall...will I have to call to have my legit copy reactivated, and will they believe me or try to say I'm a pirate... I can always figure out how to remedy the problem using Ubuntu...even if it is reinstalling, and not have to worry about activation woes.
MS would have to make their error messages more friendly, remove the DRM, create an OS for old machines, and their business practices would have to drastically change for me to think about any new OS's from them again GPL'd or not.
"I believe that Microsoft makes good products. Do you think they could attain a 95% market share without making a good product?"
ReplyDeleteYes, I think you can make a very bad product and sell it if you are not really competing in a market economy because you use monopolistic busines policies.
Let me point some aspects:
* Usually when you buy a computer, it comes with a preinstalled Windows weather you want it or not. The copy is already pre-installed and sold even if you don't want it at all. Is this market economy??
* In a market economy, consumers have access to information about the products and make a choice. Well, there are many people that do not even know that there exist a lot of alternatives: GNU/Linux, *BSD, BeOS, Haiku and so on. You cannot chose if you don't know that a choice exists. Is this market economy??
* Respecting OS-reliability, stability... all OS I mentioned previously and specially OpenBSD (only 2 safety holes found in the standard install in 10 years!!) are much safer. Microsoft would need to build a completely new product from scratch to achieve something reliable.
* I know. MS says that Vista is a really safe product. But it is the same that they already said in every previous version of Windows. Every new MSW generation is a bit safer, but all of them get easily infected by every virus, spyware... Because the main apps of Windows, e.g. Internet Explorer, MS Outlook, Messenger... can be attacked much easier than Firefox, Thunderbird or Gaim.
"I believe that Microsoft makes good products. Do you think they could attain a 95% market share without making a good product?"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS.html
"I believe Windows Vista has a similar level of security as current Linux distros."
ReplyDeleteYour believe is WRONG. The security in Vista is just marketing as it was in previous versions of Windows. Linux/Unix have a permission architecture that give it the security that it have, windows completely lack of a SERIOUS implementation of this permissions and because of this is attacked by virus and spywares.
In my opinion, if people are accusing you of being anti-Microsoft, then you are doing something right.
ReplyDeleteThis is such duplication of effort! If it works on Fedora why won't it work on ubuntu with trivial packaging changes?
ReplyDelete"The security in Vista is just marketing as it was in previous versions of Windows."
ReplyDeleteMy Windows box (non-firewalled, on static ip and fast copper connection) that has been around for a few years without having one single security problem kind of disagrees with your shitty fud.
Francesc: nobody prevents you or others from selling PCs without Windows, and with Linux. You CAN buy them. Yes, it's a market economy.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, there are also Macs out there, and they seem to sell ok.
Well, I think Windows sucks mostly, so I wouldn't use it even if it was free.
At least with Windows XP GPL the source code would be available and little elves could fix holes for Microsoft and we would have to wait.
ReplyDeleteI would not use Windows. I have never used Windows except for a couple of periods when my work mandated it.
ReplyDeleteAs early as 1985 I noticed Microsoft operating in illegal and unethical ways, therefore I vowed never to use their products. I've used CPM, PC DOS, DR DOS, OS/2 and now Ubuntu Linux.
I use it whenever I have to, but I wouldn't if I did not have to. It's not just that it isn't open source; it's the brain-dead development environment (or lack of one), crappy shell program and the way software is installed and removed (or not, as seems often to be the case).
ReplyDeleteI have a Mac for things like word processing. It's a G4 eMac with 512Mb RAM, and does not take several seconds to draw windows and to do other basic tasks, unlike Vista.
It's not just about the licence for me. After all, Syllable and OpenBSD are open source too, but how popular are they?
Respecting OS-reliability, stability... all OS I mentioned previously and specially OpenBSD (only 2 safety holes found in the standard install in 10 years!!) are much safer.
ReplyDeleteYes, in standard install. And what can you achieve with the standard install alone? Virtually nothing. It's safe mostly because they stripped away all the features.
They mostly use false fears to try to prevent people moving away (e.g. the "Total Cost of Ownership" BS ).
Bs? It's not that much BS when you really start calculating the TCO of Windows vs Linux, especially taking the risks involved into account. I've studied some of those calculations and couldn't really find any large problems of them.
It's not just that it isn't open source; it's the brain-dead development environment (or lack of one), crappy shell program and the way software is installed and removed (or not, as seems often to be the case).
It's called Visual Studio and it combined with msdn library + sdks are far from brain-dead. You can get it for free too. They also provide a better shell nowadays if you really must.. But shells don't provide any extra value. AD+MMC+Policies+vbscript (windows instrumentation) are the admin's friends and do things quite well. For saner software installation (takes care of choosing a sane unique place to prevent collisions, good rollback/uninstallation, effortless mass deployment, etc) there is ClickOnce http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa497348.aspx .
Generally Microsoft has one huge problem there. They are forced to support a lot of legacy stuff for extended times. Changing things too radically will result in Microsoft being taken to court by hundreds of silly software companies. They are not some silly Linux distro project, they are leading a complete software industry and many people's living is depending on their stuff.. Those depedencies make their life harder than necessary.
"That is not the way a market economy works."
ReplyDeleteThe operating systems market is not a market economy. Nor is it a market with perfect competition. Every time someone chooses Windows because it's what they know, every time someone sticks with Windows because that's what their custom business app runs on, every hour someone spends contributing to Wine, is more evidence of the network effects that make competition extremely difficult for anyone who isn't the market leader.
I don't believe that Microsoft will ever release Windows under the GPL, but I can quite believe that if operating systems are about to become a commodity, they will open-source Windows under a deliberately GPL-incompatible license.
The license has little to do with goodwill at this point.
ReplyDeleteBut honestly, who cares?
It's a hypothetical moral dilemma on par with "would you push your best friend onto the train tracks to be killed if doing so would save 10 strangers?"
The chances of your situation ever happening are astronomical.
And I believe you haven't been following the tech press very closely if you claim that Vista has security equivalent to that of Linux.
Maybe if that were even remotely true, we could start considering the idea of using Windows. But I think that is even less likely to ever happen than MS licensing Windows under GPL.
Paul says
ReplyDeleteWindows would not and does not need to be GPL for me to use it. Everything I use is not GPL, and could really care less if everything were GPL or using some other licensing model. I am more concerned about quality than some Open Source religion.
If I have the choice between two programs of equal value, I will always choose the one that has source available verses the one that is closed source, to be sure. But that is basically due to my being a software architect, not simply as a user of that software.
Having the source code does nothing for an end user. GPL to the average end user, usually indicates that something can be had for free. They could care less whether something is GPL or Open Source under any other license. It's free and it works; that is what the average user cares about.
No, my objection to Windows and Microsoft in general is five-fold:
(1) Their general security model sucks!! COM is insecure from the word go.
(2) Their OS is slow. Vista actually looks good, but at what cost? Mountains of hardware just to run an OS?
Applications also run much slower on Vista. Windows 2000 and 2003 are ok, as is XP, but contain way too may security holes. The only way to secure these systems is spend thousands on other security based applications (which makes Windows run even slower and oftentimes makes them unreliable), or keep them away from a network infrastructure, especially a WAN based one.
(3) Windows simply suks as a server, PERIOD! Why do I need a GUI to run a server?
(a)to make it use more resources and
(b) to make it more crash prone?
No thanks.
(4) Windows coding algorythms. WM_MESSAGE is the Windows preferred way of doing things. The entire OS is based on listeners and listener events.
No thanks.
(5) Last of all, everything about MS and MS' Operating Systems is proprietary. Their browser follows only their standards; their OS follows only MS standards, and MS' programming model, languages, browser, etc. only follows MS' standards. MS is not the only fish in the sea, but they prefer to think they are, or at least are so brazen to go out of their way in their attempt to keep anyone playing nice when attempting integration or platform agnostic code.
Can you imagine financial, defense, and other mission critical services running on Windows? EGAD, perish the thought!
For the guy who says that his MS Box has run without firewall for some odd years without any security issues... That is either BS, or no one knows where the heck your server is...
ReplyDeleteI go back to 2003, when EVEN MS had to relocate their Windows Update Service to Linux because they couldn't secure the servers good enough to prevent infection...
MS contracted an outside company to host the Windows Update Service on a farm of 1500 Linux servers just to keep the update system running because they couldn't plug the holes in their own OS...
If MS can't secure their servers NO ONE CAN!
I use Windows for some of my machines, I have 3 laptops, 2 new Dell (1 Latitude & 1 Inspiron) with Windows XP, and 1 Compaq Presario with Linux. The Compaq can with Windows 95, and I couldn't even upgrade to Windows ME without it becoming totally unstable. I installed Fedora Core 2, then Upgraded to Fedore Core 3. The machine has NEVER had problems with anything since and that was several years ago... My son like to use it.
I have 4 PCs at home, 3 home built and 1 Dell Dimension. They all run Windows XP. I spend hundreds of dollars a year in direct expenses trying to keep them secure. My Dell is almost 7 years old. I have reinstalled XP 2 times, both because the system got very slow eventually from installation and removal of software. Currently, it is in serious need of a re-install again.
From an end-user point of view, Windows is simply easier, you loose power, control, security, etc. But most end-users are STILL afraid of technology, and they want the EASIEST darn thing they can find. Having everything pre-installed is pretty easy... As is the the User Interface. MS DOES use illegal practices to keep their OS THE pre-installed one, so it is NOT an free market. Suggesting people can "change" if they want does NOT stop MS from getting paid when it is first purchased, because it is installed, and it isn't a reasonable expectation for most users... it just isn't simple.
Dell will refund roughly 50% of the OS cost AFTER the purchase if you jump through some hoops... they can only refund 50% because that is the part THEY get to keep, MS still gets the other 50%... so that doesn't change things...
I want a Dell reliability Combined with a Linux Reliability in a Notebook... But last time I checked, unless I buy from Dell France, that ain't happening...
Since I live in Japan, I really need a Japanese/English system with proper Japanese IME...
NOW, I also have several servers which I use as part of my business. These are ALL Linux. Actaully I have 1 dual boot test platform with Windows 2003 Advanced Server and Linux. I have several VM Ware Images with Windows 2003 or Windows 2000 servers for testing also... BUT for all my real production systems, development systems, customer support systems, mail systems, etc. I rely on Linux for TCO and stability.
I provide, among other things IT consulting. I consult with some of the biggest names in the IT world. Some of these companies have moved to Linux and Solaris (on x86 hardware) because the TCO for these systems is MUCH cheaper... The competition has been HP-UX and MS Windows in most cases, but the TCO for those systems is crazy...
You can't beat the TCO of well designed and properly setup *nix system... Yes, I realize that HP-UX is Unix, but it is NOT open source and shows it in both price and residual bugs which most *nix systems have overcome yet remain in HP-UX...
Basically, I designed I system which used distributed computing over a cluster of 26 servers, 1 front end and 25 work horses... The user load is small but the computational work load is high, and the per server costs of 26 machines, HP-UX or MS, made the solution cost prohibitive for 90% of perspective customers. The TCO just didn't balance... Sun was giving away OS licenses for x86 platform if we bought HW from them, and Linux was even a better deal getting a deal from RedHat, etc. for support was easy and cheap...
So don't try telling me TCO is in MS' favor... I know a Developer at MS, he is a high level manager now, but has architected some of their more popular applications. He was formerly a Unix guy, and he believed the TCO for out of box software like MS was better than spending tons on customization for an OpenSource solution... He moved from Unix to MS and works for MS... BUT, That concept is only true if you have a poorly designed system or rely on Wannabe developers... With real professional designs and professional developers you can build better solutions at lower costs using OpenSource tools... Especially with the advances in OpenSource community tools today... In my business, I don't "sell" the customers ANY system, what I do is analyze the options, determine the requirements and find or design solutions... The we look at ALL the options and calculate real TCO for 5 and 10 year periods with bets and worst case scenarios... Then we make a recommendation to the customer, based on the data, present the data with the recommendation and let the customer make the ultimate choice... If I see TCO fall in the OpenSource's favor time and again, that is just what I see... The numbers don't lie and my customers have always been happy... Honestly there have been once or twice when TCO was with MS, and we recommended MS in those cases... But there is MUCH more than TCO involved in true enterprise systems, and MS just doesn't stack up in ANY enterise environment...
Well, my Linux installations have been uniformly more stable than XP, and run faster even on less capable hardware. I've never once had a virus or spyware infection. Package installation and maintenance is much nicer IMHO. Fixing problems has generally been much easier, too. The applications I use are generally of higher quality (sometimes less features, but almost always fewer bugs), and the package manager updates all of them automagically in one neat dialog.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I got distracted. What other OS did you want me to consider again?
Well, I don't think I will use it (at work, I have no choice in this part of the world where I am living currently).
ReplyDeleteI switched to GNU/Linux not because of Licenses and Security issues, but the way Windows had treated me. In windows you are a thief by default unless you prove otherwise (whether you bought genuine software or not does not matter) and that sick and cheap idea has spread to lots of Windows based application providers (Adobe for example).
Under GNU/Linux, I am a well respected man.
Maybe if Windows continues to be as Open Source for about 10 years at least, I will get over my hatred and start using it. But as you said, it will never happen or even when MS start making it happen, it will be their end of time.
Adios. Nice question though, not many people would have thought about it.
Windows GPL'd would be a start. Perhaps the world community could accomplish what the guys in Redmond were wont to do, unravel the code. Remember one of the reasons for Vista's delay is that the code base they started on was so fouled they couldn't create a diagram of the darn thing. I think I read somewere that they dumped the original code base in favor of a Windows 2003 Server base.
ReplyDeleteI still would be concerned about security for some time after it was GPL'd. As of April 27, there were three major security flaws found in Vista (ani files, pdf files, and csrss service, all patched). What more is lurking?
As for our friend who let us know that:
"My Windows box (non-firewalled, on static ip and fast copper connection) that has been around for a few years without having one single security problem kind of disagrees with your shitty fud." I extend my congratulations. You have done the equivalent of winning the lottery, as the odds go.
If you did some research, well regarded security entities have performed empirical studies showing average time for infection of a non-firewalled XP system on the Internet was between 4 and 34 minutes.
But what the heck, we all tend to extrapolate truth from our personal experiences. I'm twice-divorced, shall we talk about my experience with women as the norm?///
You are many restriction on its use for Windows, but not Linux.
ReplyDeleteCan you post a blog some real time example ? I'm very much interested in knowing this more detail and deeper.
Well, I've suggested at various times and places, that Microsoft should open the source trees of their various [mostly EOL] OSes and applications, so that those of us who have to provide support for all the hundreds of thousands of [obsolete] MS Windows boxes still running, some of them over ten years old, will be able to make a decent go of it.
ReplyDeleteSo, yes, if Microsoft did open the source trees of their various OSes and applications under an OSI-approved FOSS license, I would use them. Anyway, it's not a case of "would I?" but "I'd have to", just to keep up with the interesting problems Microsoft software suffers from, that I have to deal with.
And it's that "I'd have to" that constitutes my biggest beef with Microsoft. I'd much rather have the option of doing whatever I like.
But opening the source code under some such FOSS license, would give me the right to actually do what I'm supposed to do - fix the blessed thing. It won't magically make the problems vanish - what it'll do is make them manageable.
"Do you think they could attain a 95% market share without making a good product? That is not the way a market economy works."
ReplyDeleteThat's not about making a good product, that's about creating high entry barriers, creating high real and perceived (through FUD) switching costs, having a big marketing budget,...
The answer is not unless it improved greatly in stability. It takes more time effort and money (not including licensing, we have an academic license) in every way to deploy and keep Windows going. It is like the choice of walking on a trail of thick soupy mud or a paved trail. Sure I might see more in the soup but it takes a whole lot more effort.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I would like to comment on the beginning of your article.
ReplyDeleteYou say:
I believe that Microsoft makes good products. Do you think they could attain a 95% market share without making a good product? That is not the way a market economy works.
Believe Microsoft makes good products if you must, but they don't have to be technologically successful, because MS is not competing in a "market economy". In a market economy, distributed development/manufacturing allows you to choose from a multitude of similar products - Fords or Hondas, Hovis or Warburton (brands of bread in the UK). If you use Windows, you can only use Microsoft's version. (You can use ReactOS for some applications, but the difficulty of creating a full clone of Windows is immense: Witness the progress of ReactOS in its seventh year versus that of Linux in its seventh year.)
Windows always has lagged behind its rivals Un*x and MacOS in technology - but that has not stopped it taking over the market.
Now, to answer your question: I might consider using Windows if it were GPL, but only if the bugs and the design stupidities (such as the Registry, drive letters, and a lack of access to the insides for those who want it) were fixed. Arguably, if you did that it would just be another weird Unix like Xenix or DG-UX.
GPL'ing Windows would not necessarily ensure that this would get done; and even if it did might be more trouble that it was worth.
Windows? Linux?
ReplyDeleteOpenBSD!!!
I think I might use a GPL'd version of Windows after open source developers had it for a few years to redo some of the features/security issues. In fact, open sourcing Windows 98 might help a lot of people. And it certainly could merge/replace/speed up the ReactOS project...
ReplyDeleteI use GNU/Linux because it is Software Libre, built around Software Libre.
ReplyDeleteIf Windows were released under the GPL, I'd not feel OPPOSED to it, but I wouldn't use it. Keeping in mind that I want only software that respects my rights, Windows looses a lot of appeal.
Hardware support sucks on Windows using on Libre drivers. And the "essential" applications people claim they miss are also non-Free and not somethign I want anyway.
GNU/Linux, BSD and Solaris already have a LOT of libre applications, driver and whatnot. Releasing Windows under the GPL would do nothing to improve the freedom capacity of that operating system, and as such, doesn't change my desire to use it one iota.
The cost of Windows Vs Linux is immaterial to me. I have equal access to both. My employer has supplied me with a lap that has XP installed in one partition and Linux in another. Neither Operating system cost me a red cent.
ReplyDeleteI chose to use Linux for all of my work for the simple reason I can get my work done quicker and more efficiently in Linux.
My Windows partition requires too much work patching, scanning for virus's, spyware etc and is just too slow and awkward. And remember, this is on the exact same computer I am running Linux on.
My work involves document management - creating text documents, documentation, spreadsheets, email, communications etc.
There are others in the office who use Windows exclusively - their choice. Our office has standardized on OpenOffice for communications both with the office and with clients outside. We have no issues with communications and sharing data using this system - even when it involves outside parties who have standardized on windows.
So, the short answer to the question is this - I would not use Windows if it was GPL'd. It is a fundamentally flawed operating system that does not suit my needs.
Microsoft doesn't make good products, they buy them or the underlying technology or the know how, assimilate them then suffocate the competition.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately most of this history is being lost.
To the majority of PC users there is nothing outside Microsoft Windows, and that is what makes Microsoft such a brilliant company, not their products.
You could choose to run only open source applications on it, or you could purchase proprietary applications if you wanted. (CNR is supposed to offer this same functionality in Linux, but it seems as if nothing is happening with CNR. Any updates on this?)
ReplyDeleteCNR isn´t supposed to enable you to purchase proprietary applications in Linux. That feature is already built in on all distributions. All you need is money on your wallet. Your phrasing is confusing and is leading to error, as people think they can´t purchase proprietary software for Linux just because some installer is missing, and there are many other ways to install software.