Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 16:47:44 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>, Yana Lehey <yana@lemis.com>, Mark C Ovens <markov@globalnet.co.uk> Subject: Re: Computers for kids (was: Back to school) Message-ID: <36B1E630.D0A44B2@uk.radan.com> References: <19990128162246.A4819@freebie.lemis.com> <36B03AC0.97BC1551@uk.radan.com> <19990129091524.K8473@freebie.lemis.com>
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Greg Lehey wrote:
>
> > OK, such research could be done on the Internet, but telephone charges
> > could make this prohibitive, especially for schools. I rather hope
> > that with the increased acceptance of Linux in the mainstream we may
> > see Linux versions of such software available in the not too distant
> > future. Then I can get rid of 95.
>
> I suppose it depends on what you mean by ``not too distant''. I don't
> see any evidence of people doing any extra work here, and that's what
> it would boil down to.
>
I get the feeling that the porting of (commercial) apps to Linux
(let's face it, that's where they'll get ported first) should start to
accelerate now that Corel have produced WP8, and plan to port the
whole WP Suite, because there is now a big name mainstream (i.e.
end-user or desktop) app available. This should make Linux a viable
alternative to Windows in the commercial environment. The
reason/excuse; "...but we can't run M$ Office on it" is now invalid.
Once a couple more big names "jump on the bandwagon" things should
start to snowball I would expect as Linux would be a more realistic
option to Windows and it's increased user base would make it an
attractive oppotunity for the commercial software companies.
As Jason Wells pointed out, Multimedia Encyclopaedias are just a large
volume of data in various standard formats, JPEG, MPEG, HTML, etc. and
the binaries needed to produce the user interface are a very small
part of the product compared to an Office suite. For this reason
porting these things to another OS should be a relatively simple
(cheap) exercise as viewers for all these formats are readily
available so they would be an attractive product for companies to use
for getting a share of the new market.
In fact the only thing stopping Open source programs being produced to
use, say, IBM's World Book is that all these standard format files are
stored in proprietry compressed archives with proprietry index files.
BTW, on your homepage, how about adding a description of the hardware
you are sat in front of in the photo?
> Greg
> --
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_______________________________________________________________
Mark Ovens, CNC Apps Engineer, Radan Computational Ltd. Bath UK
CAD/CAM solutions for Sheetmetal Working Industry
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