From: pdc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley) Subject: Re: Packaging Linux Date: 21 Nov 1992 15:47:26 GMT
Quoting drew@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt) in article <1992Nov20.233536.28788@colorado.edu>:
>
>Joe User won't port code, contribute fixes or source, and will annoy
>real Linux users with his whining about there not being a "real" editor,
>about Linux being difficult because it isn't dos, etc.
>
>So do we care if Joe User uses Linux?
Yes! Yes, we certainly do care. The fact is that many people have to
use commercial software for some of the stuff they do. If Joe User
starts using Linux, software houses might start porting their software
to Linux so Joe buys it. At about this point, people might start to
think ``Why spend money enslaving myself to Microsoft when I can have
freedom to move platforms and a real operating system for nothing?''
As I see it, we want people to write for X and port to Windows and not
the other way around. I think free software is very nice, but not
*important*; what's important is free *standards*. Any commercial
standard that only one vendor implements is very bad news; such a
standard must be fought.
That's why Linux is so important; it gives us leverage in establishing a
competing free standard.
_____ __
\\ // Paul Crowley pdc@dcs.ed.ac.uk /o \/
\X/ "I'm the boy without a sole" \__/\