Spy der Mann's Journal: Runing windows apps with WINE is NOT the answer.

I was writing a comment the other day on GNU/Linux apps and competition against proprietary software. In my signature I have added: "Fight Microsoft. Donate to Wine". But later I realized that, even when it's necessary, it's not the answer for Linux adoption.

Supporting proprietary Windows applications so they can run in Linux is a temporary approach. The real goal is replacing those applications with Free/Libre Open Source Software. We know that proprietary software will always appear, but WINE won't solve things by itself.

Why? Let's suppose WINE reaches version 1.0 and all Windows programs can run in Linux. There will be still a problem: It's not the NATIVE, TRUE way to run programs in Linux. Software developers won't see any incentive to develop Linux versions of their programs. "Why? They can run through WINE".

So the only permanent solution to being tied to a proprietary (or as Stallman calls 'em, "privative") application is to make an equivalent FREE application. And optionally, make it cross-platform so it can compete with the proprietary one. Just like Firefox.

Let's use another example. Ever heard of Krita? It's a painting / image editing application, much friendlier than the GIMP, and with multiple color spaces support (like CMYK and 16 bits color depth). Now this app has the potential to compete with Photoshop, but it's still in early development (i.e. no unsharp mask filter). Oh well, at least it's a start.

Eventually, I think Krita will reach the "competition" status, just like Mozilla did vs. IE. Then it'll be one less reason to stick with Windows.

So what do we need to help Linux reach the people out there? APPLICATIONS! We need to support developers and encourage them to develop clones for existing apps, or at least copy the existing features in them. And how to encourage them? $imple. Give out donations, do bug reports, feature requests and all that.

Sigh, we need a Mecenas to give out money to Open Source developers and start new projects.

One example not enough

[phobos13013]

Good news on Krita, but the problem is... there will be for quite some time at least one application that will be required for windows. For me, at likely for the long long term its ArcGIS. If you can produce an open source ArcGIS clone... its over, I will turn off Windoze forever. But till then I still dualboot sadly. Meanwhile in the business world, there will always be application X that is only on Windoze that may even have a *nix variant that employer Z refuses to migrate from (especially in the sm

Re:

[Spy der Mann]

You don't need to dualboot at all, I've found VirtualBox (since 1.5.2) more than enough for all my extra-limited Windows-only software needs. I really recommend it to you.

As for alternatives, here's a list of GIS software on Wikipedia: There seems to be a lot of Open Source packages in there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GIS_software [wikipedia.org]

Good luck.