(SNIP) > > All the Wine hackers at my ranch want an iMac. > > Now, some of that is certainly driven by the > > fact that we're pushing to get a Mac version of > > CrossOver out the door, > > This is news to me. I had no idea that asny development for OS X was > under way.
You betcha. The switch to Intel meant that suddenly Wine (which is an x86-dependent architecture) suddenly had a new marketplace. We're scrambling to fill that need as rapidly as possible. Among other things, Mac is currently several times larger in terms of market share (and certainly $$$) than the Linux desktop space. (SNIP) > > In my opinion, the real action on the Linux desktop > > these days is in places like Brazil, South Africa, > > India, and China. *Those* are places that 1) have a > > crying need for innovation, 2) view Microsoft (and > > American OS hegemony in general) with great alarm, > > and 3) tend to have many more smart young people than > > they have money. For them, investing the human capital > > into making the transition to Linux is more of an > > easy sell. > > What I'd like to see is more development that isn't tied to a single > platform. What disturbs me is all the "Linux instead of" talk, rather > than "Linux and." I agree. We tend to be pretty pragmatic about that ourselves. We think that the notion that one needs to expunge all trace of Microsoft from one's organization is unrealistic and counterproductive. The more important goal for any organization is to regain control over one's own software, and to restore the balance of power by moving it away from producers and back towards customers. Hence our stated goal of making Linux a Windows-compatible OS. I want my cake and to eat it, too. I want to be able to use my Windows apps, as well as my Linux apps. I want to do that without rebooting. That's all achievable, at least in theory. > > They'll cheerfully take whatever they can get that's > > verging on zero software licensing cost, and they'll > > readily bend it to their wishes be sticking an army of > > homegrown developers on it. That's a great solution, > > because it takes advantage of the openness of the > > underlying tools. > > > > But for someone like, I dunno, Owens Corning or > > Rubbermaid, it's a whole different equation. For them, > > openness and licensing costs (while both important) > > probably rank well below risk management--"If it ain't > > really, *really* broke; don't fix it." > > Bingo. I'd rather have a system where I know the tools I use work than > one where I hope they will work, or if they don't that I can make them > work. I also want a system that is developer friendly (clearly favoring > OS X over Windows) and one that doesn't lock me in to idiosynchatic > technologies). With "lock" being the critical word there. No one should be locked into anything that they don't wanna be. Cheers, -jon- ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
