> -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Findon > Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 9:13 AM > To: Frame Users; Free Framers List; Steve Rickaby > Subject: Re: Frame's future @ Mac/UNIX > > Steve Rickaby wrote: > > > >"Although MacOS X has UNIX underpinnings, the difficult > > >stuff relating to user interfaces, font access, output, > > >etc. is all exclusive to MacOS X" > > > > > >In other words, the difficult stuff has all been dealt with for > > GoLive, Illustrator, InDesign, etc. etc. So Adobe employs people > > who know how to get a document to print on a Mac, even under the > > formidably taxing OSX. It just chose not to put them to > work on FM, > > because there was little demand for its previous, non-OSX, new- > > feature-thin FM upgrades. Terrific. > > > > There may be other factors at work here. To create universal > > binaries that will work on OS X across MacIntel and PowerPC > > platforms, Adobe has to migrate their code base to XCode, > the Apple > > development system. That process is, as I understand it, > well under > > way for the CS 2 applications. > > > > However, FrameMaker has a much older code base, so the effort to > > migrate it to XCode would be proportionately greater. For all I > > know, some parts of FrameMaker might be coded in Assembler for > > speed. If this is the case, moving such code to a multi-platform > > production base such as XCode would be all the more complex, and > > might involve a major re-coding effort. All this ups cost and > > reduces margins. > > Who's side are you on, Steve ;-) > > In the early '90s, I made many a manual with Adobe FrameMaker > 3.0 for > NeXTSTEP. > > Hang on. Aren't NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X both built on BSD? > > Hang on. Aren't NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X both built on the Mach kernel? > > Hang on. Aren't NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X both object-orientated > environments? > > Hang on. Don't NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X both support Objective-C? > > Hang on. NeXTSTEP used Display PostScript, Mac OS X uses PDF. Isn't > PDF based on PostScript? > > Hang on. Don't NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X both support Type 1 fonts? > > Hang on. Weren't NeXTSTEP app developers some of the first to port > their apps to Mac OS X? > > How difficult could it be? > > Paul
It is quite difficult because the "similarities" you describe are totally irrelevant to the situation at hand. - Dov