From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Apr 11 13:30:29 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id NAA09012 for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Apr 1996 13:30:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA09005 for ; Thu, 11 Apr 1996 13:30:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id NAA04699; Thu, 11 Apr 1996 13:28:32 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199604112028.NAA04699@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Lesstif (motif compatible) package. To: alk@Think.COM (Tony Kimball) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 13:28:32 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, hackers@freefall.freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199604111936.OAA01259@compound.think.com> from "Tony Kimball" at Apr 11, 96 02:36:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > I disagree profoundly. Tk is the closest thing to a standard. > > Moreover, Tk is portable to the major non-unix platforms, > > while Motif is not. > > Tk is interpreted. This is a *HUGE* drawback if what you are > selling is a commercial product. > > No, Tk is not interpreted. Tcl is interpreted. And that not for > long. You need not use Tcl in your Tk app. But when the next > major tcl rev comes along you can ship compiled tcl objects, > according to the announced development plan. So will X-builder turn out Tk code? It turns out Motif code... > Tk has Motif drag-and-drop interoperability? This I have got to see... > > Tk has Tk d-n-d interop. Not Motif interop. Nor does Motif have Tk > interop. Mutatis mutandis. Except that Motif drag-and-drop interoperability is part of the X/Open Common UNIX Standard compliance requirements. > The small fraction running commercial UNIX and certified to comply > with IBCS2 and the SVR4 EABI, so that you as a vendor nedd support > only one binary distribution? > > The small fraction running Motif. It's too big to ship static > executables. Require shared libraries. This is obvious a problem with implementation and licensing instances more than it is a truly technical problem... you can't build a technical argument on politics. > > And of course it is completely impractical to write freeware using Motif. > > Only because Motif is *currently* a proprietary standard. > > I'd like to see that fixed as well, but I'm less motivated because > I think cross-platform is the summum bonum of GUI, and Motif is > therefore not of interest. Win32 isn't of interest as long as there is a requirement to go to thunk code to actually get things done that should be covered by the API. So I guess nothing is of interest? > And as far as HI standards go, FVWM95 has already done more to > standardize HI than CDE will ever do. I prefer CDE's content, but > there you go. The reason FVWM is popular is because of the Motif connection. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.