[sword-devel] conversations with Stallman

[Lutz, Tom]

I know that we're not missing the main idea but I can't resist...

What do we think the main populace of Bible software users (basic or
advanced) will be working on, Windows of Linux?  Clearly, today, it's
Windows.  I don't see this changing too much in the near future and wouldn't
develop for something other than Windows for Bible software because of it.

How to reach the most people: go where they are and today that's Windows.


Tom


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Dougherty [mailto:MikeD@san.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 1:52 PM
To: Sword Developer List
Subject: Re: [sword-devel] conversations with Stallman


On Thu, 2001-12-20 at 09:26, Timothy R. Butler wrote:
>   I agree, but I might point out I think you are referring to the "free 
> software movement." The open source movement smells a lot less socialist 
> (yest there is a difference between the two). A friend of mine pointed out

> recently several reasons why he thought Christians should use open source 
> software:
> 
>   1.) Would you rather have your church spend $10,000 to move the new PC's
to 
> WinXP, OfficeXP, and networking them together with Windows.net, or spend
$50 
> bucks for a Linux distro, and spend $9,950 on missions or evangelism or
Bible 
> translation (I couldn't resist throwing that last one in)?
> 
>   2.) The ideology of open source, in some ways, seems very Christian. It 
> encourages the community to help each other, and to work together. This is

> something that parallels the way Christians at least *should* work
together.
>  
>   3.) Back to money, would it be better to spend $1,500 on Office,
Windows, 
> Bible study software, and whatever else for your home PC, or to spend $50
and 
> give $1,450 to a local Christian food bank or help your church meet it's 
> budget?
> 
>   Clearly socialism is (very) dangerous, but open source can be very 
> capitalistic too, RedHat proves that.
> 
>   -Tim

I couldn't agree with you more! But you would not believe the resistance
I ran into when I approached our churches IT manager on that very
subject, with those exact arguments. Man, talk about religiously
fanatical about Microsoft! Just the mention of "Open Source" and he was
going off to no end.

Oh well, some people are just that close-minded.

/mike


-- 
******************************************
 Mike Dougherty -- Java Software Engineer
******************************************
 Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
 		-- Ralph Waldo Emerson