Re: get the project officially started

[dman <dsh8290@rit.edu>]

On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 12:49:24PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
...
| If we manage to extend our free software to the windows desktop,
| then we'll be able to compete with M$ standards that rule the
| 'market' today.

I agree with this, but finish your conclusion :

If we can compete with M$ (non-)standards by adhering to standards
_and_ supporting that system, it allows people to try out the superior
tools while still using the system they have.  This will put a dent in
MS' domination while bringing up the free and standard systems.  Then
we can show how these tools work much better (or at least just as
well) on the free Linux (or Hurd, or *BSD, or whatever) system.

This progression will help people to at the very least accept that
[name a free OS] is significant and useful.

A case study :
    At work I was required to use MS Windows.  Since I don't like
    windows, I installed cygwin and used bash+cygwin+gvim as my
    development environment.  I also used mutt (as I still do) for my
    MUA.  I even found that XFree86 and KDE had been ported (binaries
    available!) to cygwin so I installed and used them.  However, my
    machine had a history of crashing.  (according to some, quake has
    the same effect -- windows doesn't handle full-screen apps and
    switching via alt-tab very well).  The system was also on the slow
    side (what do you expect?).

    Eventually I was given permission to install Debian on the
    machine.  I still have windows so I can use it for proprietary
    stuff (word, etc) and testing on one of our supported platforms
    (java is write-once-test-everywhere, not
    write-once-run-everywhere), but I use debian as my primary system.

    I have demonstrated (am demonstrating) that I can be productive on
    debian, so I am allowed to use it.  If the free tools were not
    available for windows, it would have been much more difficult to
    demonstrate before-the-fact that I can operate in that
    environment.  (it also helped when I had problems that were caused
    by windows' incompatibilities so I could complain about it at the
    same time ;-))

-D

-- 

A man of many companions may come to ruin,
    but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.
        Proverbs 18:24