Credit crunch angst boosts open source software
THE CRASHING STATE of the economy is not a bad thing for everybody, a recent survey by the Open Solutions Alliance uncovered.
The OSA found that the while many are keeping a watchful eye on the credit crunch, the recessionary economy has actually boosted the number of users converting to Open Source software.
The survey by OSA which was conducted in late June, of over 100 member organisations, found that 83 per cent expect a year-over-year increase in revenue in 2008 from Open Source software and related services.
Respondents' replies suggested, “the market from Open Source software and services is growing and growing fast,” the Alliance said.
Seventy-nine per cent of respondents said that price is the number one driving factor for this growth.
While it appears to be all sunshine and rainbows for Open Source, there are still concerns shown by potential customers who raise concerns the licensing and vendor viability – although this doesn’t seem to worry the OSA. µ
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The only one initially raising issues of *licensing and vendor liability* was the Microsoft-FUD-spewing, megaphone-mouthed Balmer. In actuality, the *target* that customers should be most worried about dealing with is Microsoft. Open-source companies are low-income, compared to the money-glutton which is Microsoft (making them smaller legal targets), and open-source is flexible and can quickly adapt to modify any code. As well, IBM, Sun, Novell own a patent portfolio which dwarfs Microsoft's holdings. Imagine what a court order to cease distribution (and withdraw user EULA's) for all versions of Windows would do to customers and Microsoft. On top of multi-billion dollar fines for past infringements.
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Thus, Shuttleworth is very correct when he says that in any patent war, the only casualty is likely to be the inflexible, proprietary companies (like MICROSOFT), or *the Xbox company* as it will rapidly come to be known after the world comes to its collective senses and switches completely to open source.
how do I install all my applications which are for Windows?

That's the problem isn't it, for lots of people. And I'm sure there is a solution like an open standard API or something, right?

I'd switch to open source but how do I get my applications to install.
Interested party - try wine (google codeweavers). Many win apps will run in Linux under wine, some better than others.
I've discovered that the easiest way to get people to use Linux and Open Source software is just not bother telling them they're using it. They just use it.

Now for "how do I get my applications to install?". First figure out if you really need that application (is there a native Linux one that does the same job?). Then look at emulators (both FOSS and paid-for)(they'll take care of a lot of ordinary applications). Its like switching to a Mac; everything feels odd at first but very quickly you think that Windows is really the oddball system -- slow, clunky, prone to crashes, non-standard data formats and so on.
good