From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu May 18 16:27:06 1995
Return-Path: hackers-owner
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id QAA25760
          for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 18 May 1995 16:27:06 -0700
Received: (from hsu@localhost)
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id QAA25751
          ; Thu, 18 May 1995 16:27:05 -0700
Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 16:27:05 -0700
From: Jeffrey Hsu <hsu>
Message-Id: <199505182327.QAA25751@freefall.cdrom.com>
To: dufault@hda.com
Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Mma for Linux, when?
Cc: hackers@freefall.cdrom.com
Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

  >  IMHO, the right thing to do is to work on our Linux emulation so
  >  that we can run the Linux Mathematica port and not try to push

If a company has indicated a willingness to do a port for FreeBSD,
I believe we should only encourage them.  The problem w/ most OS'es
is not too many applications.  It's too few applications.  Keep in
mind that the number of users increases with the number of
applications.  It's shortsighted to say we don't need all the
applications we can get.  Since WRI has decided to go into the freeware
OS market, I am continuing reminded of the question, "why not us?"

To advance a slippery slope argument, settling for Linux application
is tantamount to settling for the Linux operating system.  Why run
FreeBSD at all if all the applications are going to be Linux
applications?  Why try to encourage more users to try FreeBSD when
Linux is so popular and has so much commercial application support?
We might as well spend our time and energy into making Linux a
better platform and abandon FreeBSD.

[Unless we want to discuss why Linux emulation is technically inferior
to running native applications, please follow-up on -chat and not -hackers.]

							Jeffrey