The Windows are open - or are they?

Sam Varghese
Monday, 25 September 2006 12:59

Opinion and Analysis

In the early days, Linux was never a desktop contender.

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The operating system was oriented towards the server; desktop use was for geeks and those who used it had to be technically competent enough to use the command line and hack their way through various things. But things have changed to a large degree and now every time there is a release of Windows in the pipeline, there is talk of a window opening for Linux to make its presence felt on the desktop worldwide.

Every year since 2003 has been hailed initially as the year of the Linux desktop; these years have passed and the cries have died down as people realise that the finishing line is still a long distance away.

Now comes a call from Eric S. Raymond, the man who in 1998 laid out a case for open source software in his book The Cathedral and the Bazaar, for a compromise to give open source the edge - Linux companies, he says, should partner with companies selling proprietary software in order to tilt the balance.

Raymond made the statement in an interview with the business technology website, Red Herring. In his own words: “We need to be prepared to go to the rights holders for these proprietary codecs and say, we’ll give you money, give us a license (sic). This is something that the Linux community has a huge antipathy to doing because we’ve got all this idealism about open source.”