From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Mar 31 02:42:18 1995 Return-Path: hackers-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id CAA13053 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 02:42:18 -0800 Received: from aries.ibms.sinica.edu.tw ([140.109.40.248]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id CAA13041 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 02:42:14 -0800 Received: (from taob@localhost) by aries.ibms.sinica.edu.tw (8.6.11/8.6.9) id SAA00743; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 18:42:25 +0800 Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 18:42:23 +0800 (CST) From: Brian Tao To: FREEBSD-HACKERS-L Subject: MetaCard for FreeBSD? In-Reply-To: <199503301916.MAA10061@rudder.metacard.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I saw a recent announcement from Metacard Corp. about ports of their hypertext Metacard Motif authoring tool to additional platforms. They now list 14 hardware/OS architectures, but FreeBSD isn't one of them. :( Linux was on the list, which is what prompted me to write this letter. ;-) For those of you who haven't heard of MetaCard, it's a commercial development tool very similar to Apple's Hypercard. I have the save-disabled demo version running on an AIX box and it's quite a nice package. They have a Web site at http://www.metacard.com. I wrote to MetaCard about a FreeBSD port and got this reply: On Thu, 30 Mar 1995, Scott Raney wrote: > > > > Are there any plans for a FreeBSD 2.0 version of MetaCard? I > > notice you support Linux, but not any of the other free PC Unices. :( > > We have no plans for a BSD port at this point. The Linux port is > barely pulling its weight at this point, and since the Linux installed > base probably outnumbers the BSD installed base about 10 to 1 > (probably a 100 to 1 if you don't count BSD machines used as > routers/servers/firewalls) it wouldn't be cost effective to do the > port. Supporting 3 different PC Unixes (Linux, SCO ODT, and > UnixWare/Solaris x86) is already stretching things kind of thin. > > We'd certainly consider doing a port if a porting fee could be > arranged, or if we could get someone to commit to purchasing a dozen > copies of MetaCard for that platform. > Regards, > Scott > > -- > *********************************************************************** > * Scott Raney 303-447-3936 Remember: the better you look, * > * raney@metacard.com the more you'll see -- Lidia * > *********************************************************************** MetaCard would be a nice addition to the list of commercial apps that support FreeBSD. A *BSD Consortium with some financial pull would come in really handy for offers like this. I don't know how much they ask for a "porting fee", but a dozen licenses adds up to $2340 (Linux and Desqview/X versions have a special price of $195 per license). They also offer a 50% discount to academic users off their $495/license price on other platforms. Any comments? Should I just stick with Tcl/Tk? :) -- Brian ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't") Tao taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw <-- work ........ play --> taob@io.org