No Respect for Windows Open Source 551
man_of_mr_e writes "Shaun Walker, one of the founding developers of the DotNetNuke Portal/CMS has written an interesting piece about Open Source software on the Windows platform. "It's hard being an open source project on the Microsoft platform. Because no matter how hard you try to exemplify true open source ideals, you will not get any respect from the non-Microsoft community." He also says "There are Open Source zealots who believe that unless an application is part of a stack which includes 100% Open Source services and components, that it can not claim to be Open Source. [...] But does this "stack" argument actually make any sense?""
A lot like Star Trek... (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I don't trust them. In this case, I'd encourage them to go closed source. Nobody should be promoting the use of VBScript or whatever that crappy Basic derivitive is that people use to write ASP (I've converted a lot of this garbage to PHP/Perl, and everything I've seen written using ASP has been absolutely horrific - the worst, least optimised crap I've ever seen - hell I could do better way back when I used to sit in my high-chair bashing away on my toy learning computer - last week it was. Now I think of it, maybe this is why IIS seems slow and wobbly; it's burdened with coping with the worst "Programmers" on Earth.
Open source is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
Same for the opposite. (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me rephrase it a bit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sound reasonable?
Does it make sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the argument: What are the overall goals of OSS? I suspect you'd get 10 different answers from 5 different people. But even if you define the goal as free and open software, you'd still want OSS projects on windows to create a transition medium. So the zealots would still be wrong.
In short, ignore them and keep up the good work.
vocal minority (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I love the fact that people are passionate enough about something that they're willing to write Open/Free Software for Windows. After all, it's a VERY popular platform, and unlikely to go away any time soon. Firefox? Sure! OpenOffice.org? Yes, please! These two projects are helping keep things at the office I work at both safe and legal. ClamWin? Why not? I could go on, but I won't.
A good analogy would be the days when kuro5hin.org was worth reading. You'd have material that was getting voted to sections and the front page all the time, but you'd only see comments like "stop posting this crap, we don't want to read it!"
Who's "we"?
Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for open source operating systems, but let's be realistic here: zealots who don't respect open source efforts on Windows are not only being stubborn, but are hurting their treasured cause.
- dshaw
Re:Open source is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem arises when a particular free, open source app relies on a proprietary library. Then in order to modify/compile the source, you need the proprietary lib (which costs money and is usually not modifiable), thus negating the "free and open" part of the situation.
The Definition of Open Source (Score:3, Insightful)
From a legal perspective, there are 58 OSI-approved "open source" licenses last I checked, which together constitute at least 58 different definitions. There's no consensus on what it really means. Personally, I feel that if I can read the code, the code is open source. All the other factors are extraneous.
However, one would think that in the spirit of openness, the open source community would welcome whatever contributions it gets, no matter how they're licensed. Sadly, that's rarely the case. I actually had someone threaten me with trademark infringement on the term "open source," when we released the Lampshade PHP framework [thinkcomputer.com] under a dual license [thinkcomputer.com] of our own. Of course, that person didn't own the trademark, becaues there is no trademark on the generic term, but whoever it was felt justified in threatening me anyway.
If the open source community wants respect, it should be willing to treat people who contribute with respect, too. Scaring off contributors is not the way to go.
why is this a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are Open Source zealots (Score:2, Insightful)
Cross Platform (Score:5, Insightful)
A mute point (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the quoted in this post was trying to get false sympathy. By using someone elses foundation you are gaining advantages that allow your job to be done more easily, However when that foundation is closed source you do no favours to people who would improve or port your project. So unless you want to do ALL the non-foundational work yourself, find a good open source foundation, or write your own OS foundation.
This is more of a practical argument than a philosphical one. I'm sure the
More sour grapes than truth here, I suspect (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, sure, there are undeniably people who insist on running a 100% pure free software stack (I'm close to this end of the spectrum myself). And there are undeniably trolls out there who see the use of non-free software (more commonly MS software specifically) as evidence of moral corruption, idiocy, or malice. And these populations have some overlap.
But so what? The reaction from the sane folks in the OSS community is going to be just, well, ignorance. As a full-time linux user, I will admit that I've never heard of "DotNetNuke" and have no plans on using it. It just doesn't enter my field of view, sorry.
Ignoring projects isn't the same thing as "disrespect", and I suspect the author has confused the two.
Port Up or Shut Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Would I care if a project that was really useful to me on Windows wasn't viable on Linux? Yes and no. I think that platform independence is a HUGE plus in the FOSS world. It definitely earns you bonus points. It increases the level of freedom the users of that project have. BUT, users of that project are also free to port it to other platforms. I wouldn't be able to run my WAMPP environment if people hadn't ported the AMPP portion to Windows.
Using more proprietary foundations like .NET do limit the usefulness of an OSS project, but only until people get interested in developing ports. If nothing else, you can build a forked project that uses the best logic and functions that aren't platform dependent and merges them with a more platform independent underpinning.
If you're developing OSS for .NET, kudos on being open source, but you do miss the bonus points for being platform independent and don't whine about not getting the cred platform-independent projects of the same nature do. If you're an OSS user who sees this great project built on a proprietary stack and are pissed because it's not available for your platform, "port up or shut up".
- Greg
Talk to the folk at Wine (Score:2, Insightful)
It's just platform chauvinism, plain and simple. It stems from a very simplistic world view, a sort of If you aren't 100% against them, you must be against us.
The irony is, it's often those who whine and complain the loudest about Micro$oft that do the least to support actual Open Source development.
Ooops, that was almost well thought out and reasoned... I should have just said: "You're new here, aren't you?"
Re:Let me rephrase it a bit... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's called "argument of the beard"...
Everyone has a different point at which they split the hairs.
Re:OpenFirmware? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let me rephrase it a bit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically to me all this whining over openess of the whole thing sounds like just silly zealotry and isn't helpful.
Re:A mute point (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A lot like Star Trek... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because in reality, there aren't actually many people like that. Sure, you'll find the occasional flameboy on Slashdot (although Slashdot's population in general is better than its reputation), and of course you'll also have zealots like Theo de Raadt (who, while probably a genius as far as the technical side of things is concerned, unfortunately still can be quite the flameboy), but for the most part, most developers *and* most users are pretty reasonable and will respect your choices and opinions even if they don't share them.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that the more reasonable developers are busy coding instead of making a fuss all the time, but I also think that people generally aren't given as much credit as they deserve. Every village has village idiots, even the global village, but you shouldn't judge the entire population based on them, and neither should you assume that the majority of the village's inhabitants are village idiots - because they aren't.
Re:Open source is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Each is tailored to a different situation. And let's not get into a debate about Open Source vs. Free Software. Not again. Please. For the curious, read this [wikipedia.org] and this [gnu.org], instead. Or just do a search for open source vs free software [google.com].
Re:vocal minority (Score:2, Insightful)
But when someone makes an OSS app which only works on Windows (Miranda), I consider it somewhat of a waste.
Re:I use a lot of OSS on doze (Score:5, Insightful)
2) You can't defeat something unless you have something better to replace it with. Linux is not better from an end-user standpoint.
3) People who port their software are NOT part of the problem. They are part of the solution. Exposure to what F/OSS is capable of will make it more likely that someone will use it in the future.
4) People like you are part of the problem. You would limit choice based on platform.
Re:Not true (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is uncool and trying to associate it with that which is cool linux,open office,firefox and thunderbird etc. is pointless excersize in marketing. Getting the community to write code for it for free to promote it's products is history (microsoft loves the BSD licence, you do the work so it can sell it back to you)
Why, no, it doesn't. (Score:3, Insightful)
The stack argument never made any sense. Over the years I've seen too many projects that claim to have Windows versions, and then when you download the source they don't include any kind of Windows build files (NMAKEs, project files, etc) or they say it has source for Windows when it really just has source for Cygwin, which isn't native Windows. Worse than that, I have even seen projects that just give you headers and libs with the Windows "developer" distribution. Or, if you offer to provide better Windows development files, they say they don't want them. This will often happen with project files for MSVC. Yes, I know they are subject to the format whims of MS's next release, but for cryin' out loud the format doesn't change that often, and there is nothing that says you can't provide NMAKEs and other, more stable build scripts too. Regardles, those MS files are part of the preferred method for modifying the program and I have even seen projects where the developers obviously used MSVC but wouldn't tar up those files. That's just cruel, because then I have to go through the hassle of re-creating them.
Anyway, the stack argument is being invalidated every day by apps like Firefox and Open Office. It might not have taken so long if so many people hadn't been snobbish. People are more likely to replace their kernel when they can keep familiar apps then they are to replace familiar apps for the sake of a kernel.
Re:Does it make sense? (Score:3, Insightful)
If there were Open Source alternatives for ASP.NET that were source level compatible, then there wouldn't be a problem. But forcing someone to purchase a license for windows, and ASP.NET is generally unacceptable from a free standpoint.
It's like saying "You can say whatever you want, but in order to say it, you have to first write it down on this handy Gov-o-matic Scratchpad!"
Re:Not true (Score:3, Insightful)
There are Good F/OSS Windows Applications! (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, I do still sometimes have to use Windows & I am happy to have F/OSS on that platform. I patch my own code to work around bugs that only impact Windows users & I have financially supported projects on that platform. I have even given money to good F/OSS software which is only on that platform. I am certainly not alone. Just look at the top projects on sourceforge [sourceforge.net]. Most run on Windows. Some run only on Windows.
So...some of the best Windows-only/Windows-mostly F/OSS:
Filezilla [sourceforge.net]--great (S)FTP client/server. Hopefully a *nix port soon.
7-zip [7-zip.org]--excellent compression software. p7zip [sourceforge.net] is there for the rest of us, but updates take a while to reach us.
PuTTY [greenend.org.uk]For your ssh/scp/sftp needs.
I've given money to these projects & carry them around on a USB key (along with Thunderbird, Firefox, and vim). Cygwin is another handy thing to have if you have to be on win32 for very long.
Re:Let me rephrase it a bit... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A mute point (Score:5, Insightful)
gAIM works "OK". It's useable. Same deal with Ethereal. These apps would be a lot better if they used the native Windows APIs, or if they used a wrapper that was abstract enough to give them more the feel of a "real" Windows application. Not getting the Windows common dialog savebox when I want to save something is annoying. I understand why they did that--it was probably a lot easier to port. If I were looking to write GUI apps cross-platform though, I'd make sure the wrapper I was using came as close as possible to the look and feel of the native GUI on all the platforms I was trying to support. GTK ports are just crappy on Windows in too many ways to ever be the method I'd chose. It's been a while but I've heard wxWindows is pretty good in this regard. If so, more people should probably use it.
Re:I use a lot of OSS on doze (Score:5, Insightful)
1) It wasn't right then, it's not right now. If you really love Linux/Unix/Etc, then at least try to support it in a way that encourages new users. This brand of advocacy that you endorse just makes it so people think you're a raving lunatic with no objective opinion. You know, a zealot.
2) Sure it can. Right now, OS X is better than Linux is, and it appears to have coexisted just fine in a Windows dominated world.
3) Most people don't know anything about OSS, and are unlikely to move to Linux just to experience it. Face it, Linux users in general are the minority, and if you want to see that userbase increase, we need to slowly get these people used to the idea that OSS is not something to fear.
[..]we shouldn't be supporting windows by making it more usable.
4) Actually, as per your original post (see above line), you flat out said we shouldn't port OSS to Windows. That's limiting choice based on platform. Isn't part of the whole FOSS argument that you're giving the user choice and freedom?
5) You take things way too seriously. Relax.
Re:Idiotic (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't follow your logic. I use Linux. I've written some open-source apps that run on Linux. Most of them don't run on Windows. My life is fine. How am I hurting myself?
For example, how can one argue against the "low quality of open sourced software" to a Windows user, who cannot try any open source software themselves
There are a whole bunch of hidden assumptions here:
Re:A lot like Star Trek... (Score:3, Insightful)
In defense of the Zealots. (Score:2, Insightful)
So, why does your software (or any OSS) deserve any respect in the first place?
For many of the 'zealots' that you are talking about, OSS doesn't deserve respect merely for the fact of being open. It deserves respect primarily beecause it is good software, and secondarily because it makes a contribution to a good cause.
I, and most of us here, don't know enough about your software to say whether it deserves respect as good software.
But, if it only runs on Windows, then we know that it doesn't deserve respect as a contribution to a good cause. I'm not saying that 'windows is evil' or denying that Windows is the dominant OS, but there are many reasons why Linux (etc.) is a good cause. It even helps Windows users because it provides sorely needed competition to Windows and thereby helps keep MS in line.
If someone writes software that runs on Linux, or that is cross-platform, then I know that they are at least trying to make a contribution to a cause that I and many others believe is good for us all. So they have my respect.
Re:A lot like Star Trek... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm Guessing You Don't Get It. (Score:4, Insightful)
In order to download DotNetNuke® Projects, you must register on the site.
I'm thinking you're getting no respect in the Open Source community because you don't get it. The community is not about how you license your software (you don't even have to be a developer to be a member of the OS community). It's about the spirit of community and openness from which springs the compulsion to use a particular license for your software.
The above statement from your site and your publication of an MS-only piece of software makes me assume that you accept Open Source because that's the way the world is and it is how one develops a resume these days, not because you like it. Is that necessarily true of you? I can't say for sure, but first impressions mean a lot, even your post somehow hits me as a little off - something about the whining or faulting others because you are not being accepted, like you need someone to bless your OS-ness, instead of just knowing you have it. I can't say exactly what all it is, but I'm guessing it's the same thing that has made others uneasy (perhaps some other poster will be more insightful in identifying the real causes).
Moreover, changing that one line on your site isn't going to do it. Faking it won't work - if you don't understand, people will see it in a million ways. OS developers will see it and continue to give you no cred. If I'm wrong, or if you're willing to learn more and understand why Open Source is a good thing, more power to you. But until you do, you're probably in for a fair amount of continued disenfranchisement.
Re:Not true (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally think your experience will be more common. Give people a little taste of geekdom and free stuff, and they might not be so afraid of trying something "weird and scary" like Linux.
You don't need respect to develop on windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beyond the FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
Stuff like Ethereal and Gimp can get a job done, but leave you wanting to avoid open source if possible. GNU software tends to be the worst offender, words cannot describe getting GPG to work on Windows.
Windows users expect a Windows interface, software that places emphasis on a good UI and that can do everything that 'normal' Windows software can do (for example the file open dialog being able to see the network).
I understand your points about cross platform OSS being both more useful to the community, and not alienating it, but due to the way it looks, Windows OSS that was not designed with Windows in mind makes people from the commercial software world think free software is free because it's too unprofessional to charge for, rather than free as in speech. That last line is not a troll - going to a university that did not explain the OSS philosophy in their courses, the feeling was that the university ran free software because it was too cheap to purchase proper software.
The open source crowd won't matter next year (Score:1, Insightful)
Kernel and Shell (Score:2, Insightful)
The applications are the hardest part to replace. Change apps until they are all free, then it's trivial to move them to a free kernel and shell.
The true beauty of free software is its cross platform and hardware independant nature.
He misses the real issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Few care about the nit-picky definition of "not being open because the whole platform isn't open" The author of the article misrepresents that for the general lack of interest most of us have in Windows-only software- we simply can't use it, and are therefore unable to see why we should care. That being said, many larger OSS projects maintain windows ports (firefox, gaim, etc), but they were Linux programs first for the most part.
Re:Open source is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open source is... (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean like KDE?
For the uninitiated, KDE is not "free" on the Windows platform, nor is it even LGPL on any platform. This is because of the proprietary Qt library on which it is based. Here's a price list [trolltech.com].
This means it is easier and cheaper to write and deploy software for Microsoft Windows than KDE. I really do not understand how anybody can badmouth Windows and then turn around and praise KDE when in some respects it's even worse. FYI, Qt / KDE is also the main reason that Gnome (a desktop environment that isn't crippled by it's licence) even exists.
Re:Let me rephrase it a bit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's widely understood that people you disagree with are by definition zealots. After all there can be no rational or reasonable reason not to accept your viewpoint, people must be disagreeing with you out of sheer zealotry and blind hatred of you and those things you love.
Re:Open source is... (Score:5, Insightful)
A free software developer, tho, could; he's almost as bad as a proprietery software developer--possibly worse--because, even though there's an adequate (perhaps not perfect) environment for which Shaun Walker could've written his tool using solely free software, he's encouraging people to stick with the proprietry base. His software is one of the temptations that we need to avoid if we're to obtain a fully free-software world.
So yes: As an open-source developer, Walker has a legitimate complaint. As a free-software developer, he doesn't.
(In case you're wondering, no, I have no idea how to spell "propriet[|a|e]ry".)
Re:Open source is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On the contrary (Score:4, Insightful)
I work for a major investment bank, building front and back office systems. Most of what I (and my team) do day to day is in Java - I use Eclipse as my IDE, build the code in Ant/Maven, and never go anywhere without my Apache Commons libraries. We have code generation tools which are built on Velocity, and everything's tested with JUnit. The finished stuff runs on Linux blades, often under JBoss or Tomcat - http duty is obviously also handled by Apache. When it comes to debugging web apps nothing beats Firefox & the HTTPHeaders extension.
But apart from that you're right - we're terrified of Open Source
nobody minds if it *also* runs on windows (Score:2, Insightful)
and discourages the use of free operating systems. On the way to a fully free
software stack, it's basically a dead end. You can't expect the members
of the FOSS community to endorse that.
Supporting Windows is a waste of effort (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason is that Windows is incompatible with existing OS API standards. This makes it difficult to port apps to or from Windows, whereas getting an app that uses mostly POSIX APIs to work on any other operating system requires a lot less effort.
Thus, if you want to support multiple platforms, your choices are essentially to spend the extra effort and support Windows, or to support only the other operating systems and spend the effort actually developing your app. As I said in the beginning, you're free to chose as you wish, but I'd choose the latter option any day.
Re:Open source is... (Score:3, Insightful)
By using this weasely phrase, you should already know.
The point is that the IA32 commands (like those of most other CPUs as well) are all very well documented and open. In the case of IA32, there are even multiple vendors available. Also anybody can look up what exactly each command does.
This makes it possible to compile most OSS software on many different CPUs.
Windows on the other hand is completely closed. It is almost impossible to port an OSS project on the Windows-platform to anything else. (See Virtualdub as an example. It is Windows-only and will stay that way)
Re:Beyond the FUD (Score:1, Insightful)
A long-time Windows developer has written a wonderful application using a Windows-only language. He was going to release it as shareware, but recently found out about the world of OSS, so has decided to release it as open source.
To complicate matters further, we'll say that the app is Windows specific and unportable.
If we take your argument, his actions are damaging to OSS, but I disagree. The program is useful and worth releasing; the fact that it released as OSS should be a point in its favour. He doesn't have the skills to write cross-platform code, but he is at least embracing the concepts of OSS.
Developers are just like regular users in this respect -- if you want to wean them off Windows, they need to be given a chance to move to OSS gradually.
Re:Open source is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, yes and no. One important issue that seems obscured by this way of framing the issue is the practical reason for wanting "open source": If you want reliable software, you need access to the source for all the software. Not just the app you're running, but all its libraries. And the system calls that it makes. And, ultimately, the hardware diagrams for the processor.
If you reframe it as a "software quality" issue, it becomes clearer. As a programmer, I often point out that, on a closed platform like Windows, I can't guarantee the behavior of any of my code. The reason is simple: My code needs to call lower-level libraries to do its job. If I can't access the code to those lower levels, I can't really know exactly what they do. Since my understanding of the lower levels is incomplete, there could be surprises in special cases that will make my code misbehave.
We saw an extreme case of this some years back, with the Pentium floating-point bug. In this case, the bug went all the way down to the hardware, where incorrect values were returned for a small number of inputs. Without access to code and circuit diagrams, you can't discover such things by any method short of exhaustive testing, which could take centuries.
Of course, making everything "open" is of somewhat theoretical value to most users. But it is of value. The "many eyes" argument explains why: By making the details visible, it is at least theoretically possible to do an exhaustive analysis; with a lot of people looking at the stuff, you greatly increase the chances that someone will spot problems or devise tests that expose problems.
But if anything under your code is closed, you don't even have the theoretical possibility of discovering problems until they bite you. Since your code is dependent on those lower levels, you can't make any guarantees about your code's behavior.
Security people have been saying something similar for years. If you want real security, you don't run anything unless you have the source. And you compiled it yourself, so you know that the binary corresponds to the source. And you compiled the compiler yourself (using a compiler from a different source), so you have confidence that the compiler doesn't contain backdoor code like Brian Kernigan described in his famous paper. And your hardware guys studied the processor's diagrams to look for possible gotchas (or designed-in bugs) in the machine language.
Unless all this stuff is open and available, you are utterly at the mercy of the lower-level stuff that you're calling.
In particular, since MS Windows isn't open for inspection, no software running on it can be reliable or secure. We have no way of knowing what tricks may be lurking down there in the OS or system libraries.