[Fsf-friends] An Ethical Question.

[Sandip Bhattacharya]

cvr3 at river-valley.org wrote:
> When Linux business solution providers go to Govt. organisations they
> are confronted with the bleak scenario of all the systems being under
> M$. Since their solutions are "standalone" and built with Linux libraries
> such as GTK, QT etc. they need invariably Linux OS. Since the
> organisations are reluctant to change their existing M$ platform just to
> accommodate their solutions (even though they liked it) they are loosing
> that business. What I am asking is that under these circumstances is it
> ethically and morally correct for them to create M$ binaries of their
> solution using windows versions of GTK and QT libraries and install them
> on the M$ platform, and there by getting the business order.

These libraries are Free on Windows and Linux, and therefore legally
usable *as long as* any GPL libraries statically linked are under GPL
and include source.

In term of ethics/morality, I personally believe using FOSS software on
Windows is a win by itself, because it opens the mind of users by
showing them a world where software can be free. We just have to make
sure that people don't mistake Free software with freeware. I have to
spend considerable energy on that right now. :)

Right now, if you buy a new computer/laptop, you will definitely have
windows on it already. But with FOSS software, an average user doesn't
need to get any additional proprietary software to get day-to-day work done.

You have 7-zip,Clamwin, Openoffice, gimp, inkscape,
mysql/postgresql,gaim,filezilla etc. which more mostly satisfies all the
needs of the user.

This by itself is a big win from my POV. Once users start talking about
it with friends and get comfortable using it, they won't notice the
difference when one day they try out a linux workstation.

The pain of migrating users from windows to Linux has always been about
changing how users do day-to-day tasks, and this is a great way to cross
the bridge.

- Sandip