OSNews

KOffice doesn't have enough people working on it.

True enough.

And companies are banking on OpenOffice.

No they're not. They're banking on Microsoft Office.

KOffice could play a pivotal role in taking on the corporate desktop.

Well, one step at a time. With its development basis KOffice could easily reach critical mass and turn into a very, very good office suite that would attract more interest, developers and investment. But the corporate desktop? Not even Open Office is denting that sadly.

Something additional is needed to get that going.

waits for the port of KDE4 for Windows

Your comment exemplifies why I think porting Unix and Linux applications to Windows is an absolute waste of everyone's time and effort.

Developers spend a lot of time and effort porting applications to Windows in the vain hope that people will move to an alternative platform, and what happens? People continue to sit on Windows and use the same applications.

Developers spend a lot of time and effort porting applications to Windows in the vain hope that people will move to an alternative platform, and what happens? People continue to sit on Windows and use the same applications.

I'd say thats a good achievement, at least they are using an open source application.

Besides if a time comes when all the user needs is open source applications, it makes leaving windows all that much easier.

Edited 2007-01-08 22:52

@segedunum

No they're not. They're banking on Microsoft Office.

The edit button was greyed out before I could put the word Linux in that phrase.

But the corporate desktop? Not even Open Office is denting that sadly.

That's partly because there are no companies left that are good at pushing desktop corporate software. Novell has no experience on the corporate desktop. It's starting from scratch. IBM could do it but it's out of the game (server only now).

Your comment exemplifies why I think porting Unix and Linux applications to Windows is an absolute waste of everyone's time and effort.

You're putting words into my mouth. It says like it written and that's it. There's no hidden agenda in there.

Developers spend a lot of time and effort porting applications to Windows in the vain hope that people will move to an alternative platform, and what happens? People continue to sit on Windows and use the same applications.

No they don't. They use what's good like VLC.

IMO KOffice and Kontact would make very good candidates/apps to push towards Windows users. Properly hyped, Konqueror could even trump the mighty Firefox.

Frankly, I don't expect much from KDE4 in the form of attracting users to another platform/OS. KDE devs aren't good at hyping their toys like the Mac folks.

Developers spend a lot of time and effort porting applications to Windows in the vain hope that people will move to an alternative platform, and what happens? People continue to sit on Windows and use the same applications.

I agree that the work in porting to Windows is misguided if the application requires significant re-coding, it sort of dilutes the value of collaboration in the OSS model and becomes somewhat of a fork.

However, the (theoretical) advantage to the KDE4 approach is that the heavy lifting is pretty much done by Qt and the core libs as far as cross-platform capability.

So a project like KOffice could (theoretically) attract developers interested in the capabilities on Windows but by using the existing framework, ultimately contribute to the alternative platforms as well. The project becomes KOffice, not KOffice on Windows vs KOffice on *nix. By expanding the reach of the application, users on all platforms can (theoretically) benefit by drawing from greater exposure to potential developers. I do perhaps naively believe that there are developers working with Windows for pragmatic reasons that would still be interested in contributing to open software on Windows. The Qt/KDE4 approach can ease their ability to participate in a large-scale collaborative OSS project.

Of course, it really remains to be seen once the libs are released and people can assess what's really involved from a technical/developmental POV. But I do think there's no harm in expanding the reach of free software as long as the effort to port free software to closed platforms doesn't detract from the the support of free software on open platforms.

Still, I'll admit there's a lot of theoreticals involved in my probably idealistic view, and this is just my 2c...

"Developers spend a lot of time and effort porting applications to Windows in the vain hope that people will move to an alternative platform, and what happens? People continue to sit on Windows and use the same applications."

For me it is the other way round:
Why should I continue using Windows, when all programs I want to use run on Linux?
Why should I invest in new Windows versions, when everything runs on Linux?

So for me using OSS on Windows that also runs on Linux is acutally a step away of Windows, especially because the time one needs to be comfortable with Linux is lower if most programs one uses work there.

Developers spend a lot of time and effort porting applications to Windows in the vain hope that people will move to an alternative platform, and what happens? People continue to sit on Windows and use the same applications.

If they're porting in the hope that people will move to another platform, I agree. However, I think it is worthwhile to port just to get people to switch to alternative software. Take Firefox as an example. If it was a Linux only application, do you seriously think it would have caused people to switch from Windows -> Linux? Maybe a couple, but the mainstream would have just switched to Opera while IE6 was sucking it up and then (possibly) moved back to IE7 if they weren't happy. Instead, you now have millions of people using open source software and making a switch to Linux in the future more possible even if it is still unlikely.

I'm normally a Windows guy but KWord 2.0 is absolutely beautiful. If this were ported to Windows I'd see it as a lightweight alternative to Office 12.

>KWord 2.0 is absolutely beautiful.

I find quite amusing this description as the font in the screenshot has obvious kerning problems.

I believe porting KDE to Windows is the biggest mistake the OpenSource community will do. People will never move to Linux/Unix. If KDE works on Windows 100% with point and click install and the OS works 100%, *why* would anyone switch to Linux for? The only thing I would port if it was up to me will be the browser and KOffice and that's about it. This will give newbies a bit of taste of KDE and what they can expect in Linux. This way, if they want to try KDE, the only way is by installing Linux and once they do, they may never want to go back to Windows. I don't think porting KDE to Windows is a good idea.

**Personal Opinion only** Feel free to disagree/agree.

Edited 2007-01-09 09:33

I've often heard this view, but I don't agree. The more killer FLOSS apps are made cross-platform, the better, and here's why I think that's so.

When such apps permeate the Windows XP-rience heavily enough that a Windows user's entire application stack can be made up of them, there's every likelihood that, by that stage, the user will have learned enough about the Movement that provided these apps, to be at least aware of Linux and its renowned advantages in security and stability.

So, when they consider migrating -- be it just a natural progression from using so much high-quality FLOSS software already, or a decision encouraged by another impending round of the Microsoft Tax -- they can rest assured that their workflow and recreational computer usage won't miss a beat. Migrating can be (nearly) as simple as backing-up your documents and popping in a distro CD.