I only recently signed up to this list, so I didn't get the Mach 4 On Linux news from a couple of months back.
I'm glad that Mach 4 is going to be running on native Linux and Mac systems. I use Linux for all my computing needs, and recently I've been starting to employ LinuxCNC for several different machine control applications. I'm liking LinuxCNC, but I think there's a good market for Mach in the Linux world. I think too many people have the attitude that all Linux software must be free, and that attitude has discouraged companies from developing commercial software for Linux, and that has ultimately discouraged Linux from more wide spread use. For example, if someone sold $100 small business accounting software for Linux that would import and convert QuickBooks data, we'd see a LOT more Linux use in the business world. Whenever a software developer creates a Linux version of their commercial software and a large portion of the Linux community laughs in their face and tells them that Linux users don't BUY software, we have no right to complain about the lack of commercial software for Linux. Open source is great for many different reasons, and I love the freedom of a one click installation from a repository without the dreadful Windows installers, end user licensing agreements, being accused of software piracy because you thought you might be able to use the software that you bought on your home PC and your notebook PC when traveling, etc. But there is a place for commercial software, even in the Linux world. As much as I like LinuxCNC, and I'm impressed at the rate at which it's maturing, it's still not known for its ease of setup. Mach is still better at that hand holding. If we have a choice to run LinuxCNC or Mach 4 under Linux, that can't be a bad thing. There are some CNC users who would love the no-virus, free, fast-on-cheap-old-PCs advantages of Linux but would like to spend some money to streamline their hardware and software setup, and Mach 4 on Linux will be an ideal solution for them. Even though I'm a big fan of LinuxCNC, I'm tempted to buy Mach 4 on Linux simply as a free market reward for the developers, as my way of thanking them for stepping out of their Windows comfort zone and embracing Linux. On 10/06/2012 04:21 PM, jeremy youngs wrote: > i thought we covered all of this mach stuff a couple months back? I > just dont see the competition, I think that simply refer to all of the > previous posts is sufficient. It does bear to say if you are going to > run linux then why would you pay for you cnc software? I think this to > be a marketing ploy of little real interest. just my .02 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't let slow site performance ruin your business. Deploy New Relic APM Deploy New Relic app performance management and know exactly what is happening inside your Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, and .NET app Try New Relic at no cost today and get our sweet Data Nerd shirt too! http://p.sf.net/sfu/newrelic-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
