Fwd: [ATPS] Re: Fwd: [Fsf-friends] BSNL should find a place in "Hall of Shame"

[cvr3 at antispam]

> Come to think of it,even in the proprietary world, there aren't too many
> affordable software for many of these(by cost I mean the cost of
> acquiring these legal software for all the required workstations in the
> office).

I feel this is very relevant to this thread, I am now coming
to the contradictions on client side computing.

Some five years back I had a feeling that Linux will steam
roll over M$ machines and starts assuming a dominant
role in the client side computing. During those period the
M$ application software were bearing slightly heavier price
tags too. But at the same time Linux tools were all free and
the variety was so exciting that it could easily put M$
people to shame. The window managers like GNOME and KDE were
so beautiful and versatile that there was absolutely no
rival at all on the M$ side. And also Linux had lots
fantastic client software such as Mozilla, Image Magic,
Evolution, Gnumeric, Open Office suites and the list goes
without an end and the M$ equivalents are heavily priced.
And lots of software development activities started
happening with the help of GTK and QT libraries. The tcl/tk
had threatened to shatter the Visual Basic, and the gcc, gtk
and qt combine threatened to kill the Microsoft C++
libraries. Under this scenario even the window stalwarts
started migrating to Linux because every thing in Linux is
free, powerful and cost effective.

All of a sudden with the growth of Internet the software
development activity moved from client/server to web based
ones. Currently almost all the softwares are WEB based (all
developed using free software libraries) and what we need on
the client side is only a browser. What people are now
trying do under Web 2 specs is to re-capture the rich
client experience (with the help of AJAX etc.) they have
lost with the disappearance of standalone client
applications.  Now people started forgetting about what kind
of OS they are using. Even in the event of OS crash because
of virus etc, people just need to reinstall their M$ OS
alone, there is no head ache of application (client ones)
re-installation and configuration at all. Earlier when the
softwares are of standalones, if something goes bad in M$
platform, people had the nightmare of reinstalling all their
application softwares and the consequent loss of data. And
exactly this software re-installation and configuration
nightmares coupled with virus attacks and consequent
security holes in M$ that drove people increasingly towards
Linux in the past.

Now almost all the softwares starting from e-commerce
portals, document management systems to mail clients are all
WEB based and hence the OS has been reduced to an
insignificant place. Even, I used to see Linux gurus
installing their software in Linux servers and going to a M$
client for testing (what they have installed in Linux). What
is subtly taking place here is even the Linux gurus are
unaware of the fact they are indirectly sharing/promoting
the M$ platform. Add to all Open Office, Gnumeric etc are
already available in M$.

If Linux community themselves remain unmindful of the client
side, is there any way of increasing the Linux users? I have
a feeling that the Internet has already  come to the
rescue of M$. The M$ may be loosing the server side to the
Linux and Linux is increasingly loosing the client side to
the Windows. If you put this in another way Linux is eating
into the Solaris more than the windows market.

The peculiar feature of a new PC is that it is coming
bundled with the M$ windows and people just need to use it.
All they require is a powerful w3c compliant Browser. This
being the present reality I would like to know what the free
software community as a whole would feel,

1. If a Linux solution provider approaching organisations
both in private and public sectors and tyring to sell his
software solutions and services, if encounters a situation
of all the client machines being under M$ and the
organisation is not willing to migrate to Linux, is it
ethically and morally correct to build his binaries under M$
using open source libraries and install them in the M$ machines?

2. Are this kind of compromises  allowed,
and without this it possible for GNU/Linux community
to increase the number Linux users in the near future?

3. So my view is that instead taking an antagonising path
towards other OS users, it is better to convince or cajole
them to the side of Linux.

4. I would like to know if the Hall of Shame theory is going
to be applied on the client side, particularly for item No. 1

--
Rajagopal CV