KompoZer and Vista

I blogged several pieces about Vista and running KompoZer on Vista and other operating systems. Today I offer a link to a Windows Installer for KompoZer and a few words about the "Bad Vista" campaign of the Free Software Foundation.

Bad Idea, Bad Vista

The idea of free software, that someone would work hard to develop the code then give it away, was kind of new to me. One of my readers asked if it was kosher for someone to be selling KompoZer. I learned that it was proper as long as the seller gave you the source code and the freedom to modify it. Learning that took me to the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

Reading at the FSF told me to consider "free open source software" as free speech rather than free beer. With that one under my belt I wandered to the page about Vista and BadVista.org. That prompted me to post a Bad Vista Logo on this site, almost a year after the Bad Vista movement began, and to say:

"One of the things the Free Software Foundation does is to call attention to things that just ain’t right. The Bad Vista logo appeared here because Vista does not score on any of the four freedom points ...Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other invasive techniques simply gives them too much control over what I might do." November 9, 2007.

Of course the larger question is, “Why would anyone allow a commercial enterprise to do something that even a government has no right to do?”

As I started to think about the New Year I concluded that the Bad Vista image had outlived its usefulness here and removed it from the template. Then I got an email from the Free Software Foundation declaring victory and noting the BadVista.org site was being retired. FSF said that 7,000 had registered in opposition to Vista during the 2 year campaign and that Vista had not reached wide scale acceptance.

The numbers here support that assertion. In November of 2007 I noted that Vista was used by less than 8% of my visitors. Today the Vista number has grown to 18%, about the same as Linux. Windows XP is still the most popular operating system here with 55%.

My numbers are different from the norm because most of you understand the benefits of free, open source software (FOSS). Firefox, for example, outnumbers Internet Explorer 3:1. In the general population I think Firefox is about even with the Microsoft offering. Another site I have is about 3:1 Explorer because it is intended for soccer moms. They obviously use what came with the machine.

KompoZer for Vista/Windows

KompoZer is a cross platform application intended to run on Windows, Linux and the Mac. I happen to use XP and downloading the zip file from KompoZer.net, extracting it and clicking kompozer.exe works for me. Others prefer to have KompoZer installed and there may be good reasons for that. I have shortcuts to KompoZer where I need them and am quite happy.

A kind soul who I believe to be J. C. Steele offers a Windows installer on the CodeFusion site. I haven't used KompoZer-7.10-setup.exe but it is recommended by a trusted source on the KompoZer support forum.

My hat is off to J. C. and all the other folks who contribute FOSS resources for the world to use.

I'll have more words for them, the good guys, and for the greedy opportunists, the bad guys, who take advantage of user stupidity.

Wysi

; .