I wrote: > > discouraging development of free replacements to software? What would > > you need to know to actually know that Wine was ultimately > > counterproductive, or ultimately productive? When it comes right down
Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote: > The world is not made of such extremes, fortunately. It is > counterproductive in so far as to promoting the development of Free > Software that replaces proprietary programs running on Windows. > > If this is not clear to you, please help me be more clear. When you say the world is not made of such extremes, do you mean you think the long-term effects of something are always unquantifiable? That these specifically are unquantifiable? Indeed, if you could be more clear, that would be helpful. Suppose someone is unable to use Wine to run a proprietary program on a free operating system. As a result, they never use the free operating system. So they never use all the free programs that are part of that operating system. Well most of those programs fulfill a function that is also fulfilled (or sought to be fulfilled) by proprietary programs. So by enabling them to use their proprietary program in conjunction with a free operating system, they are also using many free alternatives to many other proprietary programs. This seems to promote development of software that replaces proprietary programs. There are also quite a few free programs that run only on Windows. (Being able to redistribute a program and its source and modify and redistribute the source doesn't somehow cause it to be instantly ported to other platforms by the grace of God.) These programs can be run on other operating systems with Wine. They can be ported to run on other operating systems with winelib. What I'm saying is that the matter of what supports replacing proprietary software with free software is complicated and merits a more textured analysis. In response, you seem to be saying that I hold a black-and-white view. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me (though you have managed to quote me in a way that makes it look like I hold and black-and-white view, I will assume that this was not intentional). -Eliah
