eWeek: Tools, Trials and Tailoring Enhance Open-Source Options

“It’s especially pointless to argue about a glass being half
empty, or half full, if the man behind the bar is still pouring.
That’s my message to those who wrote to ask about the jarring
juxtaposition of last week’s letter, which praised the breadth of
development tools available for open-source platforms, against an
eWEEK news story about Linux distributors working to deal with a
‘dearth’ of visual tools and integrated environments.

“Some readers castigated the latter story as overlooking obvious
examples, such as Borland’s Kylix and JBuilder; Oracle’s
JDeveloper; and Metrowerks’ CodeWarrior IDEs. That misses the point
that the would-be Linux developers quoted in that story were
looking for the same cordial coupling between their Linux
distribution and its tools that they’ve grown accustomed to seeing
between Microsoft’s operating system and Visual Studio tool
set.

“Linux long ago won the interest of developers who actually seek
out the challenge of crafting their own solutions, and is rapidly
gaining ground with those who are willing to do that work in return
for corresponding freedom to choose best-of-breed combinations; the
question now is whether open source can take the next step to
become an alternate destination on the path of least
resistance…”

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