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Story: KDE getting ready to go native on Windows
Posted by: Gregory L. Marx (Tuesday 8 February 2005, 8:26 PM)
History repeating itself ...
To those advocating that it's a GOOD THING to release the KDE framework for win32, as well as releasing OOo and the Mozilla family of apps, beware and read the history of OS/2 !
When OS/2 Warp 3 was released in 1994 it was touted as a "Better windows than Windows ..." because of its optimized win16 sub-system. Same whenever Warp 4 was released in 1996, only this release also included native Java support.
THE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH GETTING NATIVE OS/2 APPLICATIONS DURING THIS TIMEFRAME WAS THE REFRAIN FROM THE SOFTWARE ISVs:
"Our win16/32s/java applications runs just fine on OS/2. There's no need for us to spend resources for a true native OS/2 port ..."
Of course by the time the win32 API was truely past being usable under Windows 3.x it was too late for OS/2. This IMO was one of the major reasons OS/2 failed to gather enough of a market. Yes, IBM charged too much for the SDK. Yes, Microsoft played dirty with IBM during the Windows 95 launch, etc ...
But had OS/2 a solid chunk of the marketplace this wouldn't have mattered as much.
As one who live through these days, smug in my knowledge that OS/2 was soooo much better than Windows 95, take my word for it. Getting the vast majority of users to change to Linux when they are running OpenOffice.org and Mozilla or Firefox, among other opensource applications will be extremely hard to do.
GLM
Full Talkback thread
Story: KDE getting ready to go native on Windows
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If you really want Posix for Windows.: http://www.... Jeff Lewis -
History repeating itself ...
To those advocat... Gregory L. Marx -
I look at it from the other point of vie... David Wright -
There are a few *HUGE* differences betwe... Richard June
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I can't argue with your 2nd and 3rd... Gregory L. Marx -
I don't remember OS/2 *EVER* d... Richard June
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Well, I know OS/2 didn't get m... Gregory L. Marx
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I definitely agree that the availability of c... Michiel Wittkampf
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When I was young, similar things happene... Chevalier Dr Dr Ruediger Marcus Flaig
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SFU -- Shut the F**K up? Cozminsky
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So I hope to be able to use http://www.reactos.com... Jamie Borg
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I thing that it's great for projects like REA... Anonymous
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The availability of cross platform applications ha... BD Phillips
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As a small office desktop user our 'training'... Anonymous
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Linux needs more, better drivers. Not Windows hel... michael howard
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Possible shortsighted comments by KDE developer?
I... Brett Kislin
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I have to disagree.
Our company is a Windows-only... Anonymous
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Isn't the point of the GPL to provide the freedom... Anonymous
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Having the only ports of great free software has n... Tobias Cohen
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I would disagree, as a very loyal Windows user, th... Jon D.
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Are members of the Open Source community really su... Gary Varga
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Making free software available on Windows alt... Larry Gearhart
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I was using Windows for a long time. I w... David
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These people who whine about "If all the good soft... Matt
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I like pizza Jo Jo
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To those who think allowing developers to do nativ... Anonymous
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>My wife is now a Linux user, and the only
>... Bubba
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The point all depends on your perspectiv... Anonymous
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Raptorhead.com sells open source apps for Windows... Anonymous
