Quote:
Originally Posted by skreutzer
Obviously, by supporting a proprietary operating system, you'll never get people to change to the free alternatives, since it is the goal of free software projects like AbiWord and Calligra to provide free alternatives in the first place (otherwise you could just be fine with a proprietary “solution”).
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OTOH, by not providing Windows binaries programmers are also effectively preventing 90% of potential free software users from switching to free software, because if end users cannot test free software solutions under Windows, they're not very likely to replace their commercial software products with them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by skreutzer
It is a freedom of free software to build and distribute binaries for whatever system preferred (as long as it comes with the source code), even if it doesn't make sense at all.
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While it does make sense to distribute software targeted at programmers and advanced users in source form, it doesn't make any sense at all to provide GUI-based software targeted at average end users in source form only. In doing so, software developers are basically discriminating exactly against those users who stand to benefit the most by switching to free software solutions, which also in a way flies in the face of most free software concepts, because, AFAIK, most definitions also include non-discrimination clauses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Mixing ideology with functionality is almost always a recipe for disaster--whether in open or proprietary projects. I, myself, am not really interested in coding projects that can't (relatively) easily be compiled and/or run on the three major platforms. That's why I've always appreciated Sigil so much.
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+1