Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2000 00:37:42 -0600 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.osd.bsdi.com> Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.osd.bsdi.com>, Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee>, Dann Lunsford <dann@greycat.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: No port of Opera? (Was: ((FreeBSD : Linux) :: (OS/2 : Windows))) Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000707002013.04723960@localhost> In-Reply-To: <54397.962948030@localhost> References: <Your message of "Thu, 06 Jul 2000 23:08:47 MDT." <4.3.2.7.2.20000706225433.0475b4d0@localhost>
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At 11:33 PM 7/6/2000, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: >> Which way do you think of as "up?" > >Giving the users what they want now rather than trying to socially >engineer either them or the ISVs in unrealistic and impractical ways. Jordan: Giving a platform a competitive edge does not mean "socially engineering" anyone. And "giving the users what [you perceive that] they want now" may turn out to be shortsighted. In the long run, users want applications which are supported on the platform they are running. If you do anything to prevent this from happening, users will ultimately fail to get the applications they want with the support they need and THEY WILL LEAVE. >You seem to be under the highly misguided impression that simply by >giving ISVs some sort of FreeBSD compatability option for Linux, >they'll flock to it in droves. Any single API which can reach a maximum number of users is attractive to developers. This was the intended appeal of Java, before Microsoft queered the deal by creating an incompatible implementation. (Sun should have insisted on authoring the standard implementation for Windows to avoid this.) In any event, the correct thing to do in the UNIX, and UNIX-like, world is to make the API which can address the most users FreeBSD's native API, not that of Linux. By porting the FreeBSD API to Linux, one would accomplish that goal. By going the other way and providing Linux emulation, one makes a case for developing for Linux only. > Clearly, you have never been or worked >for an ISV of any size or you would not hold such hallucinogenic >thoughts in your head. Jordan, the above certainly makes me wonder if YOU have worked for, or have had any experience in dealing with, any applications companies. I do both on a daily basis. Now, it may be counter-intuitive to you, but these people care not a whit about the quality of the platform itself. They only care about how many sales of a given SKU they can get without repackaging or recoding. That's it. You're setting things up so that they will NOT develop for FreeBSD; in fact, you're stacking the deck against it. >> In any event, Jordan, I'd kinda hoped that you'd appreciate a >> perspective that takes a wider view -- both spatially and >> temporally -- of the world. > >This is the classic delusional mindset at work. I see: Anyone who does not agree with you must of course be "delusional," even if his model of the world has accurately predicted events and yours has not. I guess that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it, too. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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