Pardon my french... was Re: X11 non open-source?

["Orn E. Hansen" <oe.hansen@isholf.is>]

Þann 07-Apr-98 skrifar George Bonser:
> 
> They are going to kill a goose that never had a golden egg.  Since their
> source will still be downloadable for "non-commercial" use, their
> functionality will be "cleanroomed" into XFree and nobody will every buy 
> a X11R6.4 license. Linux is a borg and will assimillate any functionality
> that comes along. They can not hide behind money.
> 
  Linux and XFree, are to Unix and X11R6, as LessTif is to Motif.

> What a bunch of idiots!
> 
  No, we are... we can easily make a deal with them.  There are several
ways of doing it, but I really doubt anybody will.  They'll probably do,
just as you described... *immitade* the functionality in the others, which
will basically mean that Linux & Co will continue to be a poor substitute
for a good Operating System.  And the mailing lists will continue to be
full of email, describing how great it *could* be, and how much *better*
it performs than Windows 95.  And some Windows 95 guys, will be persuated
to try... and they'll download it, run into trouble on the first install
screen, because of a *minor* bug... maybe continue to install the full
system, running into trouble installing X... edit a few lines, after
getting hints from the network (using their Windows 95 system), get X
going only to discover that it looks like Windows 95, only with a lot
uglier colors... then find out that everybody on the network, who were
so keen in promoting Linux, are talking about how much *cooler* these
colors are than the Windows 95 ones... and then they'll discover that
they can't configure their background on the desktop, because of a *minor*
bug in the GUI config tool... and finally decide to leave that stupid
Linux to the geeks that love it.  And *then* they'll start talking to
their friends and say how bad ____Unix____ is.

  It's not a very good description is it? But do you see, how much
damage this can do to commercial Unix vendors?  Who have commercially
based system, with complete software and fully functional systems but
have to live with a bad reputation... made by Linux *geeks* ?  That
isn't very funny, do you think?  You guys *claim* to hate MicroSoft,
but you are probably one of it's greatest fans.

  You see, here at home I make a lot of software for myself... but its
still just "half" done.  It works, but I don't have time to fully support
it, or time to implement complex features which would require a lot of
people working in a cooperative way... full time.  People with skills,
not just a few guys with an attitude.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orn Einar Hansen                         oe.hansen@oehansen.pp.se
                                          oehansen@daimi.aau.dk
                                        voice+fax; +46 035 217194
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