Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 07:23:10 -0700 From: Frank Jahnke <jahnke@fmjassoc.com> To: tedm@toybox.placo.com Cc: youshi10@u.washington.edu, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: IE in FreeBSD? Message-ID: <1126794190.9885.45.camel@localhost>
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> My opinion on WINE is that it merely harms people who are writing > software > for FreeBSD. If I write a wordprocessor for Linux or FreeBSD and try to > sell it, why would a customer buy it when he can just use his Microsoft > Word under Wine? > As a result the existence of these programs discourages interest in > native > FreeBSD programs, and encourages people not to wholeheartedly switch > over to FreeBSD. It also gives an excuse to software developers not to > bother > writing software for open source development since "they can always run > it on wine" > Ted I often hear this said, but I don't think it is true. As far as I can tell, there is essentially no commercial software written for FreeBSD (and very little for Linux) as it stands, and while the FOSS software has improved a great deal, much of that targeted for the desktop is either not good enough or simply does not exist at all. Wine will always be a compromise: some (but with hope, an increasing number of) important programs will work very well, some will perform with limited functionality which may be OK for a few selected tasks, and many or most will not work well enough if they work at all. They will also continue to be difficult to integrate with other desktop programs, even more so than Linux programs which are bad enough already. They simply are not a replacement for native programs unless no alternative exists. Your early proposed solution of running a remote desktop to run the "real" windows program also does not encourage writers to introduce a FreeBSD program version. Instead of saying "run it on Wine," one could always say "run it on a remote desktop." Old computers that may well be good enough for such occasional use are very inexpensive. Why then would anyone run a native version? I think that the best way to increase the number of native programs written for or ported to FreeBSD is to increase its market share, particularly on the desktop. The rapid acceptance of desktop-oriented versions of FreeBSD, such as PC-BSD and DesktopBSD, I find very heartening. But as long as the OS has such a small market share, we will have to rely on such "non-optimal" solutions such as qemu, Wine, CrossOver Office and the like. Sadly, I think this will be the case for the near-term future of a few years at least. It will likely be longer. In the short term, I have work to do that requires windows programs, or at least the function of certain windows programs. Not IE, as the original poster of this thread, but others that are common in the Windows world. I'd like to use a single computer and its tools for this purpose -- the workflow is so much more convenient. As it stands, I cannot turn "wholeheartedly" to FreeBSD until I can perform the sort of tasks I need to -- I will always need a Windows box for too many things otherwise. And I certainly can't subject my employees to this situation, unless they are "Unix heads" like me. That's why I started the petition to CodeWeavers to port CrossOver Office to BSD. That product may not be the "perfect" solution, but it would sure help me a lot with most of the needs I have now. That petition is located at http://www.bsdnexus.com/petition.asp and to date we have nearly 900 signatories. If you have not signed, I would encourage you to do so. Frank
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