Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 09:13:39 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Brett Taylor <brett@peloton.physics.montana.edu> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD emulation for linux Message-ID: <4.2.0.32.19990323090422.03e70f00@localhost> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903222309360.5750-100000@peloton.physics.mo ntana.edu> References: <4.2.0.32.19990322221248.03ebdf10@localhost>
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At 12:06 AM 3/23/99 -0700, Brett Taylor wrote: >Please define few. Would you like to tell all the people playing Quake or >Doom that Linux emulation is useless (or who are using their machines as >Quake servers)? Is it useless for people who want Acrobat Reader so they >can see PDF files? Is it useless for people who want to use an HTML >editor and choose asWedit? Is it useless for those who want to use Word >Perfect? Is it useless for those who want to use Star Office? Oracle? It is not useless for them to do this. However, the fact that they are buying the Linux versions of these products GUARANTEES that the vendors who make them will have no motivation to do native ports. And for an OS to be successful, it MUST HAVE NATIVE PORTS. Period. This is one of the reasons for the demise of OS/2. >You're looking very selectively at the OS/2 story. They stopped being a >viable desktop OS because they stopped emulating/couldn't emulate W95 >apps. This is, again, because they had NO NATIVE PORTS. They were all dropped once IBM embarked on its emulation strategy. All Microsoft needed to do was make it impossible for IBM to continue to emulate Windows without compromising its one strong selling point -- robustness -- and that was it. Game over. Finis. Sayonara. But the game was lost when the emulation went in. I know. I was there. >Face it - Linux is bigger. Companies will write their software for Linux >until FreeBSD has the numbers to support a native port. Porting to FreeBSD will never be a palatable business proposition so long as Linux emulation exists. Again, do your homework and ask the vendors. >We've been through this before and I didn't think it would be necessary to >go over this again, but ... The ports for 2.2.8 are there, on CD or at >Walnut Creek. Most of the current ports tree will still work under 2.2.8 >(there are certainly exceptions). If people want newer versions, they are >stuck w/ the fact that the ports tree has moved on and they may need to >track the ports tree. They may also, if they are using an old release, >regardless of how "old" it is, may have to do some work to get it to work >right. No different than if a person using a Windows 3.1 app had to >upgrade and the next version available is W95/8. Windows 3.1 was supported for a lot more than 6 months after Windows 95 came out. The 2.2.8 ports are old and moldy and in some cases will let the skript kiddies in. --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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