[Fsf-friends] An Ethical Question.

[sujith h]

On 3/13/07, Sandip Bhattacharya <sandip at lug-delhi.org> wrote:
>
> 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.


Really loved the line. If you are ready to change a little bit then you can
easily migrate to linux. For a newbei to the computer world :M$ or Linux
hardly matters.

Sujith Haridasan



- Sandip
>
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