How Not to Kill Linux (editorial)

ABeZ has written an editorial on a topic that is very dear to my heart these days- the Evils of Advocacy. Sometimes Linux users go to far in their efforts to support their idealizes free universe, and that very advocacy is what is preventing Linux from being the Mainstream Alternative that we know it can be. My biggest fear for Slashdot is that it is amplifying the problem instead of helping. Hit the link below to read ABeZ's words on the topic. Its a bit rough, but its important to read.

The following is an editorial by Slashdot Reader ABeZ.

Evils of the Anti-Advocates: or
How not to kill Linux:

As I read over many Slashdot articles and reply with my opinions (usually of out rage) I notice a large amount of people showing their anti-commercial sentiment. Now I respect your pro-GNU opinion because I have it to. It's just that there ar e certain things that could be done either quicker, better, more feature rich wi th commercial software. There are many things commercial software can't do well. An example of bad commercial software would be Win95. An ok premise for an OS b ut a failure at being usable. Yet Win95 is a big success. It has lots of support from developers and tonnes of software for it. It has many applications that ar e hard to get with Linux at the moment. New free (not open source) software is c oming out for Win95 on an hourly basis due to all their support. A big motivatio n for the production of this software is money. Nobody minds making an extra dol lar here and there. On Win95/Win3.1/DOS shareware was always popular. Pass it ar ound and pay if you like it. Lots of shareware has 1 use and it's use wasn't wor th paying for it. Yet with the lure of money you get more developers which means more software overall and more support and the greatest thing of all FREEDOM OF CHOICE!

Commercial software is important to Linux because we need it. We need bu siness applications. You might say we have them, we have a few but I'd say not enough f or a real choice, commercially you Applixware, StarOffice, and WordPerfect. What if your company generally uses MSOffice as most seem to do. Well the best you c an do in Linux is read and write word 6 documents while other pass around the Wo rd 7 docs. I don't like Microsoft but they do sometimes make some good software (Win95 is not one of them), but what I'm trying to say is that if we had MSWord for X we'd be cooking! If we want normal businesses to use Linux we have to give them the applications they can use. Often time GNU takes a long time to get a s table version out of some software while a commercial company with paid programm ers can whip it out in 6 months (though there is often quality loss). We need po int of sale programs, we need a native version of oracle's database software. We need all the "killer apps" other platforms have that we don't! That's what grea t about Linux, the sheer flexibility of it, we can probably run anything if it's ported. If you don't want anything to do with commercial software load up Debia n and don't buy commercial software!

Commercial software is also important in games. Games take a lot of effo rt from programmers and artists to make. They have artists painting or drawing backdro ps for scenes or animating cut scenes. They have modellers make 3D monster in in fest a dungeon. They employ many people trying to make a quality product. I stil l use Win95 to play games because they don't get ported to linux due to lack of support. Yet you can't expect a game that costs 1 million dollars to develop to be developed in the same amount of times by GNU developers. Game are an excellen t example of programs that should remain commercial. You don't see movies free ( at least when the come out), games are like movies and need much funding so they have to stay commercial.

Getting back to opinions, I read slashdot and see people exclaim, "I don 't want to see commercial software on linux." This is the kind of opinion that can kill or hamper the rest of the linux community. I want commercial software, if you d on't want it, don't use it. As more Win95 people come to linux they'll be lookin g for Linux equivalents of their applications they used in Win95. So far for Lin ux I have little that can stand up against 3DS or Lightwave. Sure there's povray but last time I rendered an animation with it in Linux it took 60 hours (90 if I used Win95). I need certain apps so that's why I still have to drag myself bac k to Win95. The idea that non-open source non-free (aka KDE) is bad will hurt us more than it will help. By not supporting commercial companies efforts or encou rage them we hurt others in the community who need commercial support. It's doub tful you could get a completely GNU 3DS clone with all the trimming as 3DS! Blen der for linux, is made by a commercial company and it's free but not open source so is that bad? Is it so bad that QT for KDE isn't totally free? TrollTech work ed hard to make QT and then you badger them to make it free? Maybe KDE shouldn't have used QT then but the point is KDE is still free, why should people call it names when it's GNU too?

We have to badgering companies to make their stuff free after they port it to l inux. The reason is that if these companies suddenly get this flak to become fre e ,they probably don't have the resources to make money giving tech support and can't become free because that's how they feed themselves with the money they EA RN. Now they might go off and tell other companies, don't port to Linux, they ju st want to get you to release the sourcecode to them. Do you really think IDSoft ware would want to give away their Quake2 code so others could use the secrets i nside? Their tricks and optimizations shown to the public? What would stop anoth er group of programmers from just grabbing little bits and changing it and putti ng it in their game? ID wouldn't have their advantage. After a product has becom e too old or obsolete or unsupported it is a good idea to try and get the source so that those reliant on that program can still go on using it with updates cre ated by 3rd parties.

So in summary if you don't want commercial software on Linux just don't buy it or use it. Don't ruin it for the rest of us who want to see their favorite windo ws apps ported over to linux. Don't badger every company to release their source code as GNU. Be smart about it. Try and get them to release the source code for products they no longer support and offer to port them to linux. An OS should b e free but it's programs and applications don't have to be! We all need money an d so do programmers, the only way they can usually get money is if charge money for their programs. Lots of programmers don't have the manpower to release as GN U and charge for tech support calls. Many programs wouldn't need tech support (G AMES)! If we want Linux to go mainstream we need commercial support as money makes the world go around. You pay for hardware, services, utilities and internet, so what 's wrong with paying for some software? Linux is the OS of freedom, freedom of c hoice. Don't be an anti-advocate, you choose what you want to use, don't deprive me of what I want to use. The more support Linux gets the more it's future shin es! LINUX IS THE KILLER APP!

ABeZ
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