Re: Mac OS X and Linux

From: Bats (nomail_at_no.way)
Date: 07/21/04 

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 06:16:44 +0200

Grant Edwards had this to say:

>> - then surely all the developers would have to do is to
>> re-code the GUI stuff.
>
> That's huge. Your average office/design app has orders of
> magnitude more code dealing with the GUI than with the basic OS
> services like filesystem I/O and networking.
>
I do get that - gui's are huge and hairy. I wasn't sure if there was some
degree of compatibility between the Mac gui and some other Linux one.

> I wouldn't be surprised if the jump from the MacOS toolbox API
> to Linux/GTK is at least as big as the jump from Win32 to Linux.

So, I gather that Mac OS/X is like a cake with BSD at the bottom and then
followed by a layer of Apple API and then GUI API. This way they can run
any old Apple product and it will think it's talking to it's old system.
Maybe a little porting must be done, but the work is easy.
Pity Linux cannot get some kind of OS on top of the OS like this and become
standardized and "good to go" (or is that heresy?)

>> Hook it into Gtk or WxWindows or QT (or all of them) and then
>> start selling to the Linux market. How much would it really
>> cost them to do it, just as a shot-in-the-dark off-chance?
>
> You've never shipped anything, eh? :)

In my primitive way I have. I have written a few VB apps and have had to
bundle all kinds of active-X objects along with dll's and help files and
runtime libraries into the "install.exe"
This always bugged-me. I had a choice of distributing a 500K exe or an 8Mb
exe. No Windows user would have the savvy to go and find all the
dependencies or to try and understand what they all are.

Does this mean that most Windows apps are "statically" linked?
Or, does it mean that there is a lot of duplication and files that you may
already have are simply being overwritten (updated too) by the stuff you
downloaded (in the "install.exe")?

 
> It would cost a lot. The actual porting is the tip of the
> iceberg. Testing staff have to be hired and/or trained. Manuals
> and other documentation have to be written. Support staff have
> to be hired and/or trained.

I would be happy to have a bare-bones product. Keep the manuals and the
glossy boxes and the stickers and the t-shirts. Cut the price so that
non-Americans can afford to play (at least on the poor end of the field)
and we may actually start paying for the software!
 
> Then the expensive part starts...
> Linux products require *constant* updating to keep up with the
> whims of distribution maintainers -- none of whom seem to care
> much about backwards compatibilty.
> Assuming you have to release updates to a Windows or MacOS app
> once every year or so, you would have to release Linux updates
> at least once a month to keep up with constantly changing
> kernels and distributions [mainly the latter unless you're
> writing device drivers as part of the deal]. Even then, if you
> try to support more than one or two distributions you'll drown
> in support expenses.

I have not found myself pushed to keep running the software that came with
Fedora 1. I have also kept old apps from RedHat9 with no problems. On
Windows (when I was not re-formatting and re-installing - which happened
every 3-6 months!) I found things much the same. A new version of app X
would come out. I get hold of it. I remove the old one; install the new;
carry on. I do the same on Linux.
I like it when an app can be unpacked into a single folder and that's its
home. Uninstall is "delete". I suffer a little with the whole /usr/bin,
usr/mystery/path/doc, etc business, but it's not something I care about too
much. 

-- 
Bats
~..~
(I can only post on weekends and rare times during the week.)

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