Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 15:28:03 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.osd.bsdi.com> To: Jamie Jones <jamie@bishopston.net> Cc: rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, brett@lariat.org, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, davids@webmaster.com, dkelly@hiwaay.net Subject: Re: Emulation: eg WordPerfect (was Re: No port of Opera? (Was: ((FreeBSD : Linux) :: (OS/2 : Windows)))) Message-ID: <96185.963181683@localhost> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 09 Jul 2000 22:06:34 BST." <200007092106.WAA97669@bishopston.net>
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> If the product is officially supported, then that is a big plus. If a > product *is* supported under emulation completely, wouldn't it be easier > for the company to release a FreeBSD version too, so that they don't end > up supporting the emulator in the process ? :-) Sadly not, and for two important reasons: 1. The company is not really supporting the Linux compatability code, they're expecting us to do so and have communicated such requests to us in the past, so I'm not merely speculating about this. 2. If they do a FreeBSD version, and to any reasonable standard of "commercial correctness", they also have to deploy FreeBSD in the development, QA and support organizations so that the FreeBSD version can be developed, tested and, once shipping, supported in the field. I've had more than one ISV tell me, in response to my assertion that a native FreeBSD version would not be hard for them to do since FreeBSD is a pretty standard platform to port to and all that, that porting is the LEAST of their worries. It's having to add yet another platform to their development, testing and support structures that incurs the real expense in internal training and hours invested. I can really empathise with point #2, even though I hate it working against me, since I used to work for Lotus and I had to work on projects like porting AmiPro and NOTES to everything from SCO Open Deathtrap to AIX. Every time we had to add another Unix platform to our porting list, you could just hear the collective groans go up. It cost us uncountable weeks to cope with each new operating systems' hardware and installation requirements, even when they were total no-brainers (which they almost never were), since there's still a process to go through. Then we had to learn the quirks of each OS's development environment and the, um, unique places where things were installed. Then we could actually get to the point of copying our software over and typing that first "make", just to enjoy the flood of errors which resulted. At some stage, after many hours of sweat and caffeine absorption, we even got our first successful compile and link, after which the REAL work began in making sure everything actually worked, from the opening screen to the most obscure dialog box. Do you know how much work that is or how hard it is to convince someone in the project management group that they should even do such a thing? As Wolfman Jack used to say: "I been there, I know." - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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