Very Computer

[ Article reposted from comp.os.linux.misc ]

[ Posted on 13 Feb 1996 01:01:28 GMT ]

                      Hello Software Companies!

                        You should copy this!

This is my own wishlist of Software I wanna buy, if I could:
My favorite OS is linux, because it's the most stable 'popular'
OS I could get till now.

I WANT TO BUY FOR LINUX:

        Corel Corp.     Corel Draw!
                        CD Creator
                        Word Perfect
        Adobe Corp.     Page Maker,
                        Photoshop,
        Autodesk:       Autocad
                        3D Studio
        Wolfram:        Mathematica
        Star Devision:  Star Office
                        Good Wordprocessor
                        Good Spreadsheet
        Company X:      Any good Math-Formular Editor
        Cheyenne:       ArcServe // ArcSolo
        Borland:        Integrated Development Bench C/C++
        Novell:         NDS Client for Novell Servers

        Games:          Micropose: Civ, CivNet
                        LookingGlas: System Shock enh. CD
                        Bullfrog: Syndicate, Magic Carpet
                        ID: Linux Doom, Quake, Heretic: Registered

IT's ENOUGH!
Why does the SoftWare Companies ignore Linux so hardly?
I have enough of Rebooting the System for do some work in an completely
incompetent OS, to reinstall Windows every Monday, to reconfigure the
whole system to get a game run, ... THAT'S BULLSHIT.

Greetings
        Juergen Sauer

--
=*Schneckenpost*SlowMail=+=======*Telefon=====+==*eMails*FastMail==========


28790 Schwanewede/Germany  FAX  +49 4209 5217   CI$: 100013,1564

=*Schneckenpost*SlowMail=+=======*Telefon=====+==*eMails*FastMail==========


28790 Schwanewede/Germany  FAX  +49 4209 5217   CI$: 100013,1564

Now why would a commercial place develop software for linux?  Sure, they'd
make a few extra sales.  But there is this rather high cost things
called development, testing and support.  Linux isnt exactly the
easiest system to offer tech support for your product on; it is
more configurable, and therefore much more difficult to debg
problems on.  And not greatly easy to test on, either.

Do you really, honestly think there are enough Linux users who would
shell out enough money to compensate for the cost of porting
MS-Windows code to Linux/X ?  Hopefully the advent of Willows
will change that fact, however...

--randy

: Ciao
: --
: Joachim Paulini                  | Institut fuer Theoretische Physik

: [ Article reposted from comp.os.linux.misc ]

: [ Posted on 13 Feb 1996 01:01:28 GMT ]

:                     Hello Software Companies!

:                       You should copy this!

: This is my own wishlist of Software I wanna buy, if I could:
: My favorite OS is linux, because it's the most stable 'popular'
: OS I could get till now.

: I WANT TO BUY FOR LINUX:

:       Corel Corp.     Corel Draw!
:                       CD Creator
:                       Word Perfect  
                        **AVAILABLE,  Caldera, Inc. ***

:       Adobe Corp.     Page Maker,
:                       Photoshop,
:       Autodesk:       Autocad
:                       3D Studio
:       Wolfram:        Mathematica
                        **AVAILABLE in native Linux format **

:       Star Devision:  Star Office
:                       Good Wordprocessor
:                       Good Spreadsheet
                        **AVAILABLE, several, Check Caldera **

:       Company X:      Any good Math-Formular Editor
:       Cheyenne:       ArcServe // ArcSolo
:       Borland:        Integrated Development Bench C/C++
:       Novell:         NDS Client for Novell Servers
                        **AVAILABLE, in the Caldera Desktop **

:       Games:          Micropose: Civ, CivNet
:                       LookingGlas: System Shock enh. CD
:                       Bullfrog: Syndicate, Magic Carpet
:                       ID: Linux Doom, Quake, Heretic: Registered

: IT's ENOUGH!
: Why does the SoftWare Companies ignore Linux so hardly?
The Software industry doesn't totally ignore Linux.  If you would read
the FAQs and newsgroups, you would know what's available.  

Linux will _never_ have the support that msdos/ windows has.  Accept this
fact and you will be happy.  Commercial developers are only going to produce
what will make money.  Software development is very expen$ive on something
like WordPerfect etc...

Linux is just becomming viable for commercial applications.  MSDOS and Windows
didn't get all of the killer apps overnight.  It took years for something
like windows to be developed and several years after that for what you see
now.  We can't expect applications for Linux to appear overnight either.

--
Joe Novosel

***********************************************************
* CS major:   College of Computing,                       *
* Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 *
***********************************************************


*           http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gt2497b          *
***********************************************************

Quote:>    Wolfram:        Mathematica

Quote:>    Star Devision:  Star Office

I second the need for Photoshop and CorelDraw. Also Framemaker would be
interesting if it is not prohibitively priced.

I think Software Companies ignoring the Linux market are not doing a favour
to themselves. They do not only miss opportunities to sell their products.
They also indirectly encourage people or companies to develop their own
solutions under Linux, which will then eventually be ported to other
platforms ...

Ciao
--
Joachim Paulini                  | Institut fuer Theoretische Physik

Quote:>My favorite OS is linux, because it's the most stable 'popular'
>OS I could get till now.

Quote:>Why does the SoftWare Companies ignore Linux so hardly?

Partly because there's no evidence yet that there's serious money to be
made:  the Linux market is still relatively small, and there's gobs of
free software out there to compete with.  Much of which is very high
quality, compared to most of what you can get for free for DOS.

Linux is getting very close to the point where many commercial vendors
will start to take serious notice,  but it's not there yet.

Ran

: I WANT TO BUY FOR LINUX:

:                       CD Creator
I'd guess this has a "nice" interface, but you can write cd's with linux
right now; get cdwrite off sunsite (/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/).

:       Company X:      Any good Math-Formular Editor
All the math Profs I know use TeX/LaTeX :)

:       Novell:         NDS Client for Novell Servers
There are one or two free linux-novell programs out there.  Look for
lwared on sunsite.

:                       ID: Linux Doom, Quake, Heretic: Registered

Linux Doom exists and has for a year or more; Quake is going to be
coming out for linux, acording to the Quake mini-FAQ.
        -Kurt
--
                                                                      [Place]
snail://USA/07030/NJ/Hoboken/PO Box 5136/Kurt M. Hockenbury           [Stamp]
                                                                      [Here.]

:       Games:          Micropose: Civ, CivNet
:                       LookingGlas: System Shock enh. CD
:                       Bullfrog: Syndicate, Magic Carpet
:                       ID: Linux Doom, Quake, Heretic: Registered

        I don't know about registered Doom or Doom II, but someone
actually made a game (freeware) called OpenCiv.. I believe it'll work
with just about any Unix with X.. I grabbed it a few nights ago..
requires you to get the "python" interpreter (which is there for linux
already compiled) and CLIPS (there as well) if you wish to play against
the computer.. I haven't had much time to play with it but it seems to be
a decent knock off of Sid Meier's version.. it even tells how you can
convert DOS civ's maps over to it.. :)  Plus you can setup an Openciv
server and let anyone with a client connect to your server and play in
that game.. i.e. anyone with access to the internet could use your server
and play whatever civilizations are free.. :)  Check it out:

http://solar.aie.nl/~sreiz/openciv/

--
---------------------------------------------------------

     web page - http://ni.cba.csuohio.edu/~drsoran

Quote:> It's rapidly becoming my favorite,  too,  because of its many virtues.
> However,  being "stable" is not one of them  ;-)

 +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
 | I think, therefore, I am; therefore, I speak with the authority |
 | that being gives me.  Not that it isn't fun...                  |
 +----------------------------+------------------------------------+


 +----------------------------+------------------------------------+

I have Mess-DOS programs that I wrote (or bought) 10 or more years ago
that still run, *without recompilation*,  in a DOS box under OS/2.  That,
from a software developer's point of view,  is "stable":  an API that
may grow over time,  and add new features,  but doesn't break existing
software which follows the API rules in the process.

And,  in that sense,  Linux has not yet "stabilized":  it's still going
through frequent changes that break old code.

This is not a Bad Thing,  per se.  Just the opposite,  in fact,  because
the system is constantly growing and improving.

But it does mean that the people who sink Big Bux into the development of
shrinkwrapped apps are not going to sign up to develop Linux versions
right now.  At this point,  only someone like Caldera,  who are bundling
their apps with a "known quantity" version of Linux,  can afford to take
that kind of risk.

Which is also not (for most of us, at least) a Bad Thing.  However, it
means that those who would like Linux to storm the bastions of the suits,
and take over the desktops of the business world, should not start holding
their breath just yet ;-)

Ran

Besides, there are damn few of those programs I would want to run any
more.

I do have programs running on my linux box which are almost 2 years old
(such as Maple) which still run fine.  I just checked; the oldest
working binary I have was compiled in June, 1993.  What's so unstable
about this?

--

Department of Mathematics               http://www.lehigh.edu/~dlj0/dlj0.html
Lehigh University
14 E. Packer Avenue                     (610) 758-3759
Bethlehem, PA 18015-3174                (610) 828-3708

[ snip...]

Quote:>But it does mean that the people who sink Big Bux into the development of
>shrinkwrapped apps are not going to sign up to develop Linux versions
>right now.  At this point,  only someone like Caldera,  who are bundling
>their apps with a "known quantity" version of Linux,  can afford to take
>that kind of risk.
>Which is also not (for most of us, at least) a Bad Thing.  However, it
>means that those who would like Linux to storm the bastions of the suits,
>and take over the desktops of the business world, should not start holding
>their breath just yet ;-)
>Ran

        a) A Purify-like program.  And the GCC bounds checking libs just don't cut
        it.  In a project this big, with multiple contributers, trying to figure
        out why your code has started acting weird sucks without one...

        b) A Quantify program would be nice too. (Can you tell I'm a big fan of Pure software)

        c) An incremental linker.  Our program, the X version which I write, is about
        300K lines.  Having debugging on, and compiling in debugged versions of the
        X and Motif libraries and you get one HUGE application and memory/swap
        hog.  Unfortunately when Linux starts swapping to find space for linking
        you might as well go home for a day...Yeah, yeah, I could up my memory
        some more, or only compile certain files with symbols turned on but that's
        just covering up the problem.

        d) Another de*.  GDB, like the linker, if it has to use swap, forget about
        using it.  On my SPARC I use xups, which at least has the sense not to load
        things until you ask for them.  There is Linux xups but it dies when I
        run my program in it.

        I'm a big fan of having tools to make my development time be quicker, and
        I can't switch fully over to Linux until I get these things...And I'll bet
        other Unix app providers have the same feelings.  We support Linux, but
        its still a port, which might be what scares other Unix houses...
--
o  John L. Cwikla                           o                                o
o  X Programmer                             o   I'm not in a bad mood.       o
o  Wolfram Research, Inc.                   o   I'm always like this.        o

o  http://www.veryComputer.com/~cwikla           o                                o
o  http://www.veryComputer.com/~cwikla/widget    o   The Widget FAQ               o
o  http://www.veryComputer.com/~cwikla/xlopedia  o   The Xlopedia                 o

Quote:>I do have programs running on my linux box which are almost 2 years old
>(such as Maple) which still run fine.  I just checked; the oldest
>working binary I have was compiled in June, 1993.  What's so unstable
>about this?

        /lib/libc.so.4 (Jump table 4.1)

    However, one thing that bit me when I installed a recent
distribution (Red Hat, just prior to their conversion to ELF) one one of
my client machines was that uname() stopped working; I wrote my own
getty program, and it calls uname to pick out system information, but
when I moved it over to that client, which I had just installed and was
installing my usability package on, the login prompt that getty spat out
changed from 'gehenna login:' to <some random garbage string>' login:';
and when I ran it via gdb, I was able to determine that, yes indeed,
uname() was filling the utsname structure with finely diced cabbage.
(This might be good news for cabbage growers, but it's not so good for
me; getty lives on a nfs-mounted /usr, and is shared by a collection of
machines, all of which will not be upgraded to the library of the week.)

                 ____

                  \/

Quote:>Well, let's not go overboard here.  Let's see, 10 years ago.  I have
>lots of DOS programs written back then, for DOS-2.0  Most of them
>stopped working at about DOS-4.0, which is why DOS-5 had the option of
>fooling programs to think that it was an older version.

Some of the ones written for 2.0 couldn't take advantage of new features
like the better directory structure support:   I have a word processor
written in 1985 that can't access files outside the current directory.

And yes,  the vast majority of the programs I bought or wrote in those
days have been superceded by something better.

But not all of them.  And I have the option of using the ones that are
still good enough for my needs,  because of the commitment to supporting
well-behaved "legacy" software in the Mess-DOS design.

Quote:>I do have programs running on my linux box which are almost 2 years old
>(such as Maple) which still run fine.  I just checked; the oldest
>working binary I have was compiled in June, 1993.  What's so unstable
>about this?

It would be unrealistic,  and horribly unfair,  to expect Linux to have
achieved the stability of Mess-DOS by now.  It's even arguably a bad idea
to want it:  Microsoft and IBM "locked in" some dumb choices that are
still haunting them today.

But the fact remains that Linux is not yet at a point where people who
have to commit 6- and 7-figure investments to building/porting systems can
feel "safe" sinking their money into it.  Until it gets there,  no one
should be surprised that it's not taking over the corporate desktops,  and
that they have to be willing and *able* to do most of their software
shopping at FTP 'R Us.

Ran