Don't Port Open Source Software to Windows

This thought was spurred after seeing an article in The Hindu (India's National News Paper) about GIMP being made available for the Windows Users.

Now these can be the usual responses:
* What's wrong?
* Great! now lotsa people will use GIMP (by hard core GIMP fans)

But, one should remember this important quote from (yours truly) Bill Gates :
"The more applications we get, the more volumes; The more the volumes, the more applications"

Here, volume refers to the number of copies of Windows sold around the world. Gates tells us that, by selling more "volumes", more developers get attracted to writing software for it, as they would cover a wider customer base and more applications means more users buy Windows specifically to use those applications (to end the cycle).

Simply put, All Visual Studio users would by Windows and more VS like apps will be created for windows making more people buy it.

Now, what alarms me is not that more people would buy Windows if they are specific about using just GIMP but it would definitely put away people who might think of switching to linux.

Now, the usual counter-argument would be that people would develop a soft-corner for Linux by using Windows-ported Open Source software.
But, this will only have a detrimental effect as they would wait for all software to be ported to Windows.

Ironically, all cool OSS like PHP, Apache, OpenOffice etc., have already been ported.

Now, why is this a worry?
Wider User base is definitely important for developing cool software and if Linux has to win (or thrive), it needs more users which can only be got by making more people use Linux.

To face reality,
Does the Acrobat eBook Reader run on Linux?
We do not currently plan to develop a version for the Linux platform, but we may in the future if that platform becomes more widely used.
the above three lines were excerpted from
http://www.adobe.com/support/ebookrdrfaq.html#linux

The perfection of everything

To me, living my life is like being a tourist in chinatown. I find myself asking the questions : "what is all this?" "why is all this happening around me?" and since i have no one to post the questions to except myself, i find that the response or answer (or whatever you want to call the thought that is evoked by these questions) always hovers around Einstein's saying - 'God does not play dice [with the universe]'

I don't know what connotations it has and how others interpret it, but to me, it means that everything that is happening in this world- is happening with surgical precision, in divine perfection.

Yes, Every single event, entity, thought is perfect.

Let me give a few examples to support my view point:

1) No matter what happens in a restraunt, people will always visit it if it provides good food (inspired by paul graham )

2) bhagvat gita - the happened/happening/to happen are all for good


If you are willing to further, ponder over this conjecture, try to live with it for a while. try to apply it to your everyday happenings, you might arrive at the conclusion that i want you to arrive to.

Note that this is not a sales pitch for a philosophy. I find no other reason to explain things like child molestation, jehadi "live tv" murdrers, state of people who live BPL. So, these things are because they have to be, they play a part in the perfection, to contribute to the orderliness.