MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-09-21 |
| FROM | From: "Ruben I Safir - Secretary NYLXS"
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] What is wrong with this picture?
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Migration
SourceXtreme aims to move Windows developers to Linux
Monday September 20, 2004 (08:00 AM GMT)
By: Tom Chance
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A small Philadelphia-based company may be about to revolutionize the world of
Windows application development, not by creating a new proprietary technology,
but by bringing proprietary Windows features to Linux. Working with Qt,
Trolltech's cross-platform toolkit, MinGW, a minimalist set of GNU utilities
for Windows, and Wine, a free implementation of the Windows API, SourceXtreme,
Inc. has developed the ability to write Windows programs without ever using
Windows. Its goal is to make porting applications to Qt trivial, and to move
Windows developers onto a free software platform.
Of course compiling Qt applications using MinGW has been possible for some
time -- the earliest success story I could find was from November 1999 -- but
SourceXtreme now claim to have refined the process to the point where it can
develop Windows applications under Linux commercially.
SourceXtreme's business plan seems quite simple -- delivering a range of
services from groupware migration to custom programming. A large proportion of
businesses in the company's area are of small or medium size, and almost all
of them use computers, usually with proprietary software. If they can be
offered a cheaper free software solution, and if SourceXtreme can make that
migration trivial, then it will have an open market.
The big hurdle, of course, is the migration, which requires either
compatibility between the old proprietary applications and SourceXtreme's free
software solutions, or porting the proprietary products and maintaining them
as free software. With most of the major technologies, such as groupware, Web
servers, and file servers, free software has become increasingly capable, so
companies like SourceXtreme are able to offer seamless migration. But when
confronted with custom applications the process can be more painful.
Of course the picture isn't quite that simple, since companies often upgrade
their applications. This, according to Ian Geiser, vice president of
SourceXtreme, gives free software advocates the upper hand: "A lot of business
applications contain legacy C code that companies porting to Java or C# would
have to rewrite. With Qt and C++ we can keep it." Geiser believes that
Microsoft has given the development and business communities the impression
that it is abandoning these custom applications in favor of ports to the new
.Net architecture. By using the leverage of free software tools like Qt,
MinGW, Wine, and Valgrind, all of which Geiser considers superior to Windows
alternatives, SourceXtreme is able to port applications to the Qt toolkit and
C++ at a lower cost, thus preserving a business's core applications, freeing
the organization from vendor lock-in and helping its bottom line.
Though he is positive about his company's future with this plan, Geiser is
more excited about its implications for the software development market. The
second stage, which SourceXtreme intends to help through support and training,
is moving development shops off Windows onto Linux, where they can port legacy
applications and develop new ones using free software tools. "The shift",
Geiser said, "will be similar to when Microsoft first offered a C compilation
environment for DOS, which resulted in developers flocking to their platform.
When developers compare the Windows and Linux platforms, and especially the
features of Qt to Windows' MFCs, they'll see that they'll have less work to do
with better tools under Linux."
If Geiser is right and development shops start to migrate to Linux as their
primary development platform, we could see some major knock-on effects. The
first is that there will be no barriers to developing cross-platform
applications, giving businesses that buy from these shops fewer barriers to
switching themselves. Widespread migration would also provide another
incentive for development shops both to develop cross-platform software and to
provide migration services themselves.
Secondly, developers are early adopters in the software market, and if a large
proportion of them move from Windows to Linux and are seen to be adopting a
platform for their work that has already become extremely successful in other
context, many will follow. In the context of development shops, a company is
more likely to be persuaded to migrate to a platform if its contractor is
using it successfully. If that contractor can migrate them to the free
software platform and save them money, it becomes an obvious move.
The idea of making Linux and Windows applications compatible seems similar to
KDE on Cygwin, a port of KDE and Qt to Windows. When I asked Geiser about this
project, he was dismissive: "It isn't viable, it's working in the wrong
direction. KDE on Cygwin says to companies that Linux and KDE aren't a viable
platform, so promoting KDE on Cygwin is promoting Windows. We want to promote
technologies that move companies away from Windows."
If, as John Terpstra is advocating, we need to "get our act together"
migrating small and medium businesses to free software platforms, then the
work that has gone into SourceXtreme's software puts the entire community in
good stead. It may not reshape the market overnight, but it provides another
piece of the puzzle.
--
NYLXS - New Yorks Free Software Scene
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
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