Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Logic

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:8/27/2000; 7:24:30 AM
Topic:Next survey: Are you an open source developer?
Msg #:20355 (In response to 20354)
Prev/Next:20354 / 20356

Other market segments have been devastated, gone, or subsumed into others, and open source had nothing to do with it. This is the flaw in Brett's reasoning, he assumes a cause and effect that may not be there in compilers and editors.

A good example, the spreadsheet is now a feature of Office packages. It used to be a standalone product category. Not no more.

Open source had nothing to do with it.

It could be that text editors became full featured editors like BBEdit or word processors.

BTW, UserLand uses Metrowerks and Microsoft commercial development environments. I assume this is because they're the best choice for developing on Mac and Windows, respectively. I doubt if the money had anything to do with the decision, and believe me, we never want to change the compiler. That's *their* job. We already have enough work.

OTOH, I dislike reasoning that works the other way, making sweeping claims about damage commercial developers have done. Usually they talk about Microsoft. They are not the only commercial developer. A lot of open source advocates seem not to know this.

Further, when leaders like Eric Raymond say that Mac is a lost cause, that's a blowoff for Mac developers. Think for yourself. There are still a lot more Mac users than Linux users. If your goal is to create an independent and healthy and diverse group of non-Microsoft developers, you can't afford to blow off any sizeable market.

I have some credibility here that I didn't used to. I now use Windows fulltime. I could adopt Raymond's position, but far from it, I keep investing in the Mac, for the same reasons that Unix developers should. If you want diversity, include everything, exclude nothing.

And btw, that includes Microsoft.

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