If Windows were Open-Source...

[dr.koljan]

Let's change the reality for a couple of seconds and pretend that Windows is actually a free open-source project, while Ubuntu belongs to a big commercial company and costs say 300$. What would you choose if the quality of those OS's were the same as they are now?

[Sam Lars]

Dang, this is a tough one. I think a big reason for using Ubuntu, for me, is that it's free. I'm not sure that I would pay Windows prices for it.
On the other hand, I love it, and I don't so much like Windows. I think that if my new computer came with Ubuntu, I'd use it primarily, but I'd use Windows on older machines...

[karellen]

I would use Windows

[gameryoshi600]

this is tough.. i would use windows

[decoherence]

Well it depends... in your hypothetical reality, does Bizarro-Ubuntu (presumably owned by Bizarro-Canonical) also have a stranglehold on most of the market, whereas Bizarro-Windows is a fresh, vital community project? Is Bizarro-Ubuntu the main target of malware? Does Bizarro-Ubuntu have Bizarro-Ubuntu-only technologies like Bizarro-ActiveX that breed incompatibility?

I vote that I'd "illegally download ubuntu." In fact, I wouldn't even do that, I'd just use Debian :P Or if Bizzaro-Canonical had scared all the other distributors away, I'd switch back to *BSD or perhaps Slowaris.

I know unix systems, I like the way they work.

[CM Xtasy]

Windows. I would start fully using Ubuntu if I could properly use my iPod Touch someway on it :( The only way for it to work is to FTP to it, but I need iTunes just incase I need to recover it.

[MONODA]

nope I wouldnt, now if you asked me if I would use OS X then that's another story. OS X would be great if it was open source and if it allowed me to easily change the DE wm etc

[LaRoza]

So basically you are asking if Windows were called Ubuntu and Ubuntu were called Windows?

Note to everyone, names aren't important.

[CM Xtasy]

So basically you are asking if Windows were called Ubuntu and Ubuntu were called Windows?

Note to everyone, names aren't important.

No, he's saying if Windows was free and if Ubuntu costed money, which one would you use. They are both just like they are now, except Ubuntu costs money and Windows is free.

[jrusso2]

Even if Windows was open source it would still be full of virus.

So I will stick with Linux

[LaRoza]

No, he's saying if Windows was free and if Ubuntu costed money, which one would you use. They are both just like they are now, except Ubuntu costs money and Windows is free.

That doesn't make much sense. It is like asking if fire were not hot but still burned you and ice burned you but wasn't hot what would you touch.

Linux's (Ubuntu's) quality is a result of its development model.

[amingv]

Well, since you don't actually imply that "Canonical Windows XP" would be closed-source it would make a lot of sense using it (at least more than it makes using Windows now). The "evil" Canonical would pump money to the vendors of hardware to support it and I still could make it what I want (an open-source project needn't be beer-free).

[Midwest-Linux]

Steve Ballmer would be working for Red Hat and saying Windows is a cancer.

[Scheater5]

I LIKE Ubuntu for both practical and ethical reasons. I USE Ubuntu for practical reasons. I'd pay $300 for a good working operating system - I voted to legally buy Ubuntu. But Windows would look much better, and I might support it and hope it would eventually grow into a good open source project - but I wouldn't use it, even if it were free.

[Scheater5]

That doesn't make much sense. It is like asking if fire were not hot but still burned you and ice burned you but wasn't hot what would you touch.

Linux's (Ubuntu's) quality is a result of its development model.

I agree, but I believe the question at hand requires a bit of suspension of disbelief in order to point at a specific question. It's a fair - if problematic to answer - question.

[Le-Froid]

As a strong beliver in the open-source community, I would use free windows...just thinking about this whole situation stated sounds..very weird to me.

[Sealbhach]

If windows were open source, wouldn't it be a much better product, because everybody can work on it to improve it?


.

[amingv]

If windows were open source, wouldn't it be a much better product, because everybody can work on it to improve it?


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In this hypothetical situation both OSs remain the same.
From OP:

Let's change the reality for a couple of seconds and pretend that Windows is actually a free open-source project, while Ubuntu belongs to a big commercial company and costs say 300$. What would you choose if the quality of those OS's were the same as they are now?

[wdaniels]

Linux's (Ubuntu's) quality is a result of its development model.
If windows were open source, wouldn't it be a much better product, because everybody can work on it to improve it?

Exactly. I think the question is so difficult to answer because it's some kind of paradox. But if "the hand of God" reached in and made it so, all of a sudden, with the two codebases remaining just as they are now, I wonder how long it would take for Windows to be refactored into Linux? And which would you use in the meantime? FOSS Windows for me, and I'd have a lot of fun reworking it!

[bashveank]

If Windows, in it's current state, was open source and Ubuntu, in it's current state, was closed source, than I would use Ubuntu.
If Windows had been an open source project from the beginning and Ubuntu closed, than you've simply renamed Ubuntu to Windows and Windows to Ubuntu, in which case I would use Windows.

[amingv]

If Windows had been Open-source from the beginning, I believe it would be posix-compliant (as God recommends), and right now we'd be answering to a thread about "What would happen if Ubuntu was Open source and Windows was proprietary", so things wouldn't be much different, really.

[factotum218]

I tried to imagine a $300 price tag on something like Ubuntu and my head nearly exploded.

If windows was open source i would guess a new kernel would have been written for it by now. So I would say windows if all now-commercial sofware was open source as well. Hands down.

In a nutshell it would depend on if there was a swap with present software as well.