Stuart Cohen, the director of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL – also the company that currently employs Linus Torvalds) has been quoted on Zdnet as speculating that MS might start porting some of their applications to Linux.

I’m a little sceptical. One of the major reasons that Linux is having a hard time in the desktop market is that the ‘standard’ software in use by most industries is created only for Windows. Witness how freaked out people get when presented with Open Office vice MS Office; or the GIMP vice Photoshop.

The idea of MS porting or creating Linux software goes much deeper than simply tapping a few more bucks from Linux users – it means thrusting Linux into the limelight. It’s been known for a long time that the single biggest factor pushing the porting or development of alternative OS software is the sudden support or inclusion of said alternative in a mainstream product.

To make matters even more problematic, businesses are in business to make money. The Open Source community isn’t in it for the money. So…problem: if MS (or anyone else for that matter) is going to throw resources into Linux they would only do so if there was a reasonable expectation of profit in it. I suspect that convincing Linux users to pay for software is going to be a tough battle. Personally, I would have no problems paying for a decent program if there were no other OS alternatives. However, in most cases there are OS alternatives and let’s face it: cost is one of the reasons I switched to Linux to begin with.

It makes for an interesting conversation, though.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 3:48 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.