Linux on Windows

[Alex Hudson]

On Wednesday 31 October 2001 5:40 pm, you wrote:
> > Solution: push for open standards, or better, push for free (as in
> > freedom) data formats for your data.
>
> I agree with this, though I don't understand why that is linked to the OS.

I can think of one germaine reason; that's resources.

For every GNU project that ports to Windows (for example) as standard, that 
means that the source tree & builds all have to keep the Windows ports up to 
date. That could be a simple as some #ifdef WIN32 .... #ifdef GNU .. etc., 
but is likely to be a lot harder. We would see the size of the source code 
rise, would need Win32 bulid systems to test, would need Win32 binary 
releases, etc. In short, you expend a lot of effort. 

All the money I've ever given to FSF has been on the understanding that I'm 
supporting Free software - I would not be particularly impressed to find the 
FSF spending its resources on supporting non-Free software.

Conclusion: I don't mind seeing Free software work on non-Free platforms, but 
we shouldn't be expending energy doing that. If you look at the debian-hurd 
mailing list archive, you'll see a recent subject (dated 16th Oct) entitled 
"Debian GNU/HURD/Windows?" - a similar topic, and a similar conclusion.

Cheers,
					Alex.