Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 17:25:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: lenzi@cwbone.bsi.com.br, ports@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lesstif (motif compatible) package. Message-ID: <Pine.AUX.3.91.960410162601.6230A-100000@covina.lightside.com> In-Reply-To: <199604102044.NAA02340@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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I haven't attached your comments on Lesstif, due to space constraints, but let me say that you made some excellent points and I agree with you completely on this topic. Motif is the closest thing we have to a standard in the wacky world of X-Windows, and it offers several compelling features: It is reasonably fast, looks professional, has a consistent style guide that follows IBM's CUA guidelines (i.e. it is similar to Windows and OS/2), and interoperates well with other Motif programs (e.g. Drag and Drop). Also, there are some excellent GUI builder tools that allow a complete user interface to be generated in literally a matter of hours (instant UI, just add callbacks!). In particular, I have been doing some significant work with a GUI builder called X-Designer (it costs $3500 so it is definitely not for personal use), which, like many of its competitors, generates standard Motif code (no proprietary libraries) that can be transferred to ANY computer with Motif, including FreeBSD, and compiled with no trouble whatsoever, whether or not X-Designer itself has been ported to that machine. At any rate, Motif is important, and I am willing to pay for it for my own projects, because of the above reasons. I feel that every X program should be using Motif, if licensing wasn't an issue, in order to assure a consistent user interface (a la CDE) with good interoperability. With shared libraries, the size of Motif isn't a big issue, because there is only one copy in RAM. However, Motif is difficult to integrate as a component of an OS like FreeBSD, because of its commercial status, so it would only be justified in, perhaps a special CD-ROM edition, never in the main source tree (which, esp. for installation purposes, it is perhaps most needed!). So, for commercial use, I would stick with Motif, for free OS's, I would LOVE to see something like Lesstif, but not if it succumbs to the very legal entanglements (that Terry mentioned) that it was trying to avoid! As an aside, a company called ARDI has made a Macintosh emulator (it has been mentioned once or twice on this list in the past) called Executor, written *entirely* with clean room techniques, which requires neither ROMs nor MacOS, and supports nearly all of System 6 and much of System 7. This is a commercial effort (as is the Windows API emulator TWIN), but I would argue that either one of these projects (especially Executor) is at least as difficult as writing a Motif clone (especially when the "meat" of Motif, the Xt Intrinsics, is free!). So, I wish the Lesstif people the best of luck, but if, as Terry mentions, there are legal entanglements, I would not recommend it be placed as a port or package any time soon. ---Jake
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