Opensource isn't a right and it's not free

The trigger for this post is a reasonable request from a Windows user. Well, it's reasonable on its face. They put forward two questions, paraphrased below:

1. Why is is so hard for opensource developers to get their stuff working on Windows?
2. Why don't opensource developers care about the Windows population?

When it comes to operating systems, Linux and OSX are practically kissing cousins. Linux grows out of Minix and OSX grows out of NetBSD. There's been significant cross-pollenation and agreement. Both are POSIX-compliant, have relatively sane package systems, and provide a consistent command-line interface and a common configuration mechanism. Filepaths differ, but that's a simple case-statement. The same tools work the same.

Windows, on the other hand, is different. Very different. The entire architecture of the thing is alien. It has different assumptions for what an OS does and how someone will use it. It puts things in different places. It has different ways of reading and setting configuration. It has four different commandlines, each of them completely different. It has three unrelated packaging systems, none of which put stuff anywhere like the others and which don't even acknowledge the others' existences.

That should answer the "Why don't it work right?" question.

90% of all web applications are deployed onto some form of Linux. (Rarely on OSX, but that's the fault of Apple's licensing, not a problem with the platform. IIS may have had its day in the sun, but that sun has practically set.) Given Linux's historical problems with providing a good GUI, OSX has proven to be a great development platform for web applications destined for Linux. Given its great support for virtual machines, it also becomes a great platform for developing mobile applications (XCode and various VM solutions for Android). That hits the developer tetrafecta.

Because of this, most developers are very familiar with Linux and are likely using an OSX laptop. They will only use Windows for testing in IE.

This is what people are paid to do.

Let's talk about who are opensource developers. The average OSS developer (insofar as there is an average) is someone who's paid to do development using OSS tools during the day. They will usually work on these modules to initially scratch an itch for work - the initial release is usually a donation from an employer. The developer then starts to take pride in it at home. Most OSS developers realize that these modules act as advertisement for their skills. (Every job offer I've received in the past 10+ years has referenced my OSS work in some way.)

There is a vast world out there of things that I could learn. Whole new ways of

• Storing and managing data
• Interacting with huge datasets
• Doing operations
• Doing development
• Thinking about parallel execution

I don't have a mousefart's chance in a windstorm to even keep up with what I already do for work. So why am I going to spend time learning how to manage a complex system that I will never use for work?

I'm not. And that's why I don't care if my opensource stuff works on Windows. If you want to make it work, then great. I love pull requests. If your employer wants to pay me to support it on Windows, we can discuss my rate.

But you don't have the right to make me work for free to accomplish something I don't care about. That's just not how things work.