MOVED TO OFFTOPIC!
> Well this was certainly an expectation for me: many of the apps being
> ported have some sort of entry level giveaway, and most companies who
> port are trying to find some sort of service model (rightly or wrongly)
> ie: Oracle,
Have a monster cash cow to sit on (Oracle 8i)
> Sun,
Ditto - sun hardware. Their software is generally fairly crap - look at the
difference between the IBM and Sun JVM's - usually an order of magnetite
better performance and stability in the IBM ones.
you can throw MS into this one too - massive cash cows in Windows and
Office.
> Corel
Who? I thought they died or got swollowed by MS. ;-)
Seriously, Corel came to market with an awful distribution of Linux
("tragic" and "a waste of someone else's bandwidth" are closer) -
wordperfect and stuff for Linux is OK, but still....
90% of people supporting the service model are going down in a hail of
flames. Look at RedHat's stock price, for example: currently sitting at $14,
they came to market at $151. Looking at the graph, they are doing down all
the way.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=rhat&d=b
If you didn't get out of that one in the first year, you lost money.
> And it is fairly popular on the Evil Empire OS as well (Interbase,
> C++ Builder (compiler only), can I still say Netscape?)
Interbase IMO should never have been opensourced - but thats another
story.... I like the idea that my favourate DB is now free, but OTOH, I dont
see it going forward at ALL without significant cash investment from either
Inprise or someone else...
C++Builder - very few people use the compiler-only version (except uni
students), and they used to get it for fractionally more than the cost of
the CD. Its cheaper to give it away. There are lots of free C compilers for
Windows now - gcc, DJGCC? Cygnus etc. Or just install Linux and do it
properly.
Netscape 4.x is, and always was, a joke. Netscape is dead. AOL only have a
branded version of mozilla.
Mozilla is a great rendering engine (done by what was netscape, AFAIK), but
the rest of the shell is, IMO, total crap. Lots of nifty graphics, no real
advancements UI-wise over 4.7, which is about as bad as you can get.
Oh, and on my Celeron 500 / 128meg, its SO SLOW.
Problem is, the alternative is not that much better. But it is better.
> It would/will be difficult for anyone to come in with a high price
> entry to that 'market' (although lots of free exposure to the devs who
> read Slashdot - (yet another free software vs open source vs free beer
> debate...)). Doable but still difficult.
BUT, the problem is, its almost impossible to stay in the market if you give
it away. Unless you have developers who are only doing it 'cos they want to,
not 'cos they have to pay the rent. for Eg, I love developing, but I also
like eating, and I like to think I have a life outside of work (sometimes
not always the case), and that requires a level of cash. If I sat at
home/work and developed opensource and free software all the time, I'd be
broke in a few months (or less).
> OTOH Delphi has it's own fanatics and these are probably the initial
> target for Kylix (yes/no ?)
Pretty much. Along with the linux zelot's who also develope in Delphi during
the day.
> rather than the free/open fanatics.
> It would be disappointing if there was not a
> free trial/free personal use/foundation release.
> (Borland can make all their money back on the Windows releases:
> the boss pays for those...)
> Also seen D4 given away on a magazine cd (unsure whether that was
> a time limited trial or what).
It was the full thing, but thats a version back, hence why it was free - its
stopped generating revenue.
N
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Zealand Delphi Users group - Offtopic List - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website: http://www.delphi.org.nz
