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Sunday, March 21, 2004

Open Source Desktop and Components

Miguel gets all postmodern on us...

I personally think that we should move away from the "Linux Desktop" view of the world, and more into the "Open Source Desktop and Components" (I first heard this idea from Nat a few months ago).

It may sound like a trivial difference, but it is not. As much as I love the Linux desktop, and as much as I love our tools, the most successful desktop components today are OpenOffice and Mozilla because of their cross-platform nature.

Windows NT, XP, MacOS X and Longhorn will be with us for a long time. The best possible outcome of open source will likely be a segmented market like 33/33/33 for the desktop market.

Contrary to his previous statement about the Longhorn API, the quotes here nail the only workable reality head on...

The best bet today is to share as much as possible on your "engine" and redo the OS integration components for each OS you support.

By the way, since this postmodern approach is inevitable, the light cast onto the Longhorn approach (seemingly "all or nothing") appears very dim indeed.

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Portland, Oregon, United States
I'm usually writing from my favorite location on the planet, the pacific northwest of the u.s. I write for myself only and unless otherwise specified my posts here should not be taken as representing an official position of my employer. Contact me at my gee mail account, username patrickdlogan.