Windows ports

[Ian Zimmerman]

Alan> You have to admit, discussing Windows at a Bay Area Debian
Alan> meeting is like trying to sell dog $#!T at a lawn party!

Karsten> - From the strategic standpoint, incrementalism works to free
Karsten> software's favor.  Availability of free software on the Win32
Karsten> platform makes possible trialling of aspects of the GNU/Linux
Karsten> experience.  Realizing that legacy MS Windows systems
Karsten> outnumber GNU/Linux ones 20:1, it's a nice leverage of our
Karsten> codebase.  My feeling is that the advantages of free software
Karsten> will be made more accessible this way, and that the appeal of
Karsten> a completely free solution will be stronger once a small sip
Karsten> is taken.

I have mixed feelings on this point, in part because, not having to
deal with Windows for some time (at least not in a development
situation), I don't have the factual knowledge I need to take a
position.  If Karsten's last sentence is clearly true, I am all for
doing the ports.

However, even during my last bout with Windows + cygwin about 3 years
ago, it seemed to me that getting the Frankenstein to work flawlessly
was impossible.  Things were always just-a-little-bit broken, not
enough to make one use the GUI but enough to fill the soundscape with
unprintable utterances :-)  That might have been a childhood disease
that is over now, but it may also be that there's just no complete
mapping of the Unix API to Win32 and these glitches are inevitable.
And in this latter case, I think that Karsten's hope to appeal to
Windows users that way is a false one, and the ports would be a waste
of time, energy and talent - the closest thing to the concept of "sin"
I recognize.

-- 
Ian Zimmerman, Oakland, California, U.S.A.
GPG: 433BA087  9C0F 194F 203A 63F7 B1B8  6E5A 8CA3 27DB 433B A087
In his own soul a man bears the source
from which he draws all his sorrows and his joys.
Sophocles.