Proprietary software will always win out because it can have a single-minded purpose and direction. Engineers and programmers have a tendency to reinvent the wheel at the drop of a hat, because “reinventing wheels” is what they enjoy. Even when reinventing the wheel will keep them from getting where they want to go. [3]Is this a real issue? Not if it stays within the Linux community. If IceWeasel starts replacing Firefox on Windows machines then it'll divide the user base that same way having two equally strong left wing candidates can insure a right wing victory.
[1] And also it's strength. I'm not a complete idiot :)
[2] Which is thankfully starting to improve.
[3] This is even a problem at pro-developer environments like Google where management is finally starting to realize they have too many "hey, why I don't I build this" under-developed applications compared to their strengths like Google Search and Gmail.
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Article comments
1 - Bliffle
Open Software always has the potential of leading to chaos, but opportunities exist for companies that can put together a packaged version of the software that is coherent, maintained, and reliable. Just like, and often better, than proprietary software.
2 - Mark Saleski
Firefox is the flagship example of open source software, and is the only one “normal” people use.
an interesting point. however, a slight mischaracterization of open source, since the entire infrastructure of the internet is build from open source components: dns, sendmail, apache, tcp/ip.
as far as prospective users being confused about which distro to look at, or of the user interface(s) not being unified, i would argue that the vast majority of people have never even had the opportunity to look at a linux-based system. it's not like it's easy to purchase a machine with the software preinstalled.
3 - Charles Cazabon
You don't get it; Debian *has* to do this, because the Mozilla corporation won't let them distribute Firefox in a way which is consistent with the Debian constitution.
It's not that they *want* to fork Firefox. It's that Mozilla is *making* them do so.