Your Opinion about OpenSource..

[danbuter]

While Open Source is really cool, a number of internet posters go to extremes about it, to the point where anything Microsoft does is inherently evil. If Microsoft gave a billion dollars to fight poverty in Africa (or in Bill Gates case, something like 5 billion), many Open Source people would still say they are evil capitalist bastards who hate everyone, including their mom. Check out Slashdot for a lot of this. It gets very tiresome, very quickly.

[techieMoe]

While Open Source is really cool, a number of internet posters go to extremes about it, to the point where anything Microsoft does is inherently evil. If Microsoft gave a billion dollars to fight poverty in Africa (or in Bill Gates case, something like 5 billion), many Open Source people would still say they are evil capitalist bastards who hate everyone, including their mom. Check out Slashdot for a lot of this. It gets very tiresome, very quickly.

True, there are those who consider "Open Source" to be more of a religion than a practical software practice. Richard Stallman is notorious for this sort of thing. I say everything needs to be in moderation. Love Open Source? That's great, keep it up. Just don't start preaching on the mount about it.

[carlosponti]

the only thing that gets me fanatical is when since i use Linux there are applications that i would like to use but they wont release it under Linux and the thing they always state is that it is because Linux doesn't meet enough of the market to release it to Linux. Which makes me even more mad when they release a mac version. with Linux its a catch 22 people say the reason they wont switch is because the software they use isn't available and the software companies say they wont release what ever that software is because there are not enough users on Linux. the reason the mac port and not Linux makes me mad is because they have close to the same OS share of the market both are just under 4% of total OS usage. They should just be honest and state that they don't really like Linux and don't know anything about how to develop for Linux instead of the lame market share excuse. plus another thing i think that drives this fear of Linux is that people misunderstand open source licenses.

the most recent example i have of this is a small company that has this RC flight Simulator written in Java of all things keeps stating that they wont and cant release it for Linux because of the expense to do so.

the thing that drives people to hate Microsoft is the bullying they have done in the past to consumers and OEM PC manufacturers. this has left a sour taste in the mouth of consumers and users of computers period. Gates and MS could donate 15 billion to the development of Linux and still have the same scorn and mistrust. unfortunately and don't ever quote me as saying this but Microsoft does have good products its the reputation they have that drives the scorn. And i will deny if you tell anyone i said it

[techieMoe]

the only thing that gets me fanatical is when since i use Linux there are applications that i would like to use but they wont release it under Linux and the thing they always state is that it is because Linux doesn't meet enough of the market to release it to Linux. Which makes me even more mad when they release a mac version.
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the reason the mac port and not Linux makes me mad is because they have close to the same OS share of the market both are just under 4% of total OS usage.

Umm, not quite. One thing that developers of commercial software like to have is consistency. They know without a shadow of doubt that if they design a piece of software to work with Microsoft Windows XP or Mac OS X that (for the most part) it will act exactly the same on all systems running those OSes.

That's just not possible in Linux unless they choose one distribution and forsake all others. Sure, they could make an Ubuntu version, but then the Fedora and SuSE folks would complain. They could make a version for Redhat Enterprise but the Ubuntu and Debian folks would complain. There are just too damn many versions of Linux with too damn many loud complainers to please everyone in the Linux world.

Loki Games (rest in peace) did a fairly decent job of working with all Linux versions when they released their games, and Id Software does a fairly good job as well, however these games are their own environments. They don't really plug into the X Windows system or any other underlying OS mechanism aside from the graphics card. Imagine trying to design something like Adobe Photoshop for Linux. What windowing toolkit would you use? Qt? GTK? Mono? There's too many variables.

the thing that drives people to hate Microsoft is the bullying they have done in the past to consumers and OEM PC manufacturers. this has left a sour taste in the mouth of consumers and users of computers period. Gates and MS could donate 15 billion to the development of Linux and still have the same scorn and mistrust.

Now there will be those who disagree with me, but I think to consider Microsoft as a whole as irrevocably evil is quite immature. They're a company, made up of thousands of people. Their leaders in the past made very unethical decisions that resulted in the money they have today. However, Gates and Ballmer will not live forever. They will eventually be replaced, and with every CEO change there is a possibility for improvement.

There are a lot of good, honest people working at Microsoft. I went to college with some of them. They are not responsible for the ignorant blustering by their CEO. Argue all you like about someone like Steve Ballmer being evil or blindingly stupid (I won't disagree), but that doesn't mean Microsoft as a whole is the devil incarnate.

[carlosponti]

Microsoft has a good small database in SQL Server not as good as oracles but i liked the development i did in it. The guys who write on it are phenomenal.
yeah i don't much like Balmer every time he opens his mouth it seems their stock drops. not to mention lately they have taken on patent trolling. defending a patent is one thing extorting money or position from patents is another.

the thing that bugs me about the companies and porting software to Linux is that they wont be honest about it. just state some statistics about market share. the one example i provided i do believe they just don't know how so they give the typical its just not big enough to waste our money on excuse. i would feel better if they stated that the development choices are too great and cant limit themselves to developing for one distro only. or at least they could do is come up with an unofficial Linux port they don't support but maintain like one company is doing that i plan on buying from. both companies write RC flight simulators which i practice on when the weather is bad.

since you are a java programmer can you explain how it is that a windows based java program takes too much work to port to linux? i am curious about that because i assumed when i learned java that it was supposed to be platform independent. now granted i took one class on it and its scope was limited to learning the basics of the language. The one company wrote their flight simulator in Java that stated they cant convert it plus they use OpenGL. of course i could be wrong about them developing it java thought i read that somewhere.

[techieMoe]

since you are a java programmer can you explain how it is that a windows based java program takes too much work to port to linux? i am curious about that because i assumed when i learned java that it was supposed to be platform independent. now granted i took one class on it and its scope was limited to learning the basics of the language. The one company wrote their flight simulator in Java that states they cant convert it plus they use OpenGL.

Well, as a Java programmer I'm stumped on that one. I've successfully run all manner of programs on Linux, regardless of the OS I used to design them. The OpenGL libraries are implemented differently on each individual OS, but they aren't so different that it would take a tremendous effort to port. The Java code should "just work" without any modification at all, unless of course they're making lots of system-specific program calls (which is really bad programming practice to begin with).

[carlosponti]

they also use OpenAL for the sound?!


ClearView RC Flight Simulator ClearView - free demo download

so if they use Java for the code base OpenAL for sound OpenGL for graphics it still astounds me that they wont port it. one guy offered to port it for them for free and they turned him down.

[techieMoe]

they also use OpenAL for the sound?!


ClearView RC Flight Simulator ClearView - free demo download

so if they use Java for the code base OpenAL for sound OpenGL for graphics it still astounds me that they wont port it. one guy offered to port it for them for free and they turned him down.

Yep, sounds like you're right in that case. They should really just own up to it and say they don't want to make a Linux version. The evidence seems to suggest that it's possible, just not wanted.