Matt <matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Homer wrote:
>> Verily I say unto thee, that Matt spake thusly:
>>> Homer wrote:
>>>> Verily I say unto thee, that Matt spake thusly:
[...]
>> You earlier accused Chris of lacking diligence in his analysis, but it
>> seems you are now guilty of the same mistake, because it was not
>> /always/ the case that Amarok was cross-platform, and indeed that was
>> not originally even part of the developers' road-map. As someone who
>> /does/ actually pay attention to these things, I recall various
>> discussions where the developers actually /dismissed/ the possibility of
>> building Amarok for Windows.
>
>
> That is important history. And it is easily interpreted as an
> instance of developers coming to understand the desirability and/or
> inevitability of a cross-platform future.
Read: That they should really all be writing applications for Windows,
because that would be much better for Microsoft and imagine how large
a userbase they could then have!
[...]
>> /My/ opinion is that porting previously GNU/Linux-only applications to
>> Windows, will do little except further encourage users to /keep/
>> using Windows.
>
>
> You don't seem to have much faith that people will see Linux as the
> better OS. Each cross-platform app enables more people to change
> OSes.
What people 'see' is usually what they have been told to believe by
marketing. And there is really nothing what would prevent people from
switching to another operating system in order to use particular
applications. That's what they usually do, except that Microsoft has
been the PC-OS-monopolist for so long that this starts to become
'ancient history'.
[...]
> If a Linux-oriented applications developer actually believes that
> Linux-only development benefits Linux more than cross-platform
> development does---although I think the number of such believers is
> shrinking fast---then he has to decide whether he is working to the
> benefit of Linux or to the benefit of his application---his own
> brainchild.
Read: That they should really all be writing applications for Windows,
because that would be much better for Microsoft and imagine how large
a userbase they could then have!
Didn't we have this already just a minute ago?
> Can you imagine one developer on a Linux-only team saying they could
> get fifty times more users and ten times more developers by porting to
> Windows, when the rest of the team jumps all over him and asks him
> menacingly "Just what are your intentions?"?
Read: That they should really all be writing applications for Windows,
because that would be much better for Microsoft and imagine how large
a userbase they could then have!
Didn't we have this already just a minute ago?
> There may be some who choose Linux-only development so as to learn or
> to make friends or for their private use, or because they believe it
> is somehow more moral, or simply on their own whim, That's all fine,
> but I don't see how their software is likely to amount to much in the
> sense of attracting users on Linux or elsewhere.
Read: That they should really all be writing applications for Windows,
because that would be much better for Microsoft and imagine how large
a userbase they could then have!
Didn't we have this already just a minute ago?
The mere fact that you repeat this four times in a single text shows
that the benefits are obviously not so self-evident that people can be
expected to do as you would like to, believing this to be the best for
themselves, unless properly enlightened first.
|
|
