[Desktop_architects] Re: Portland: How to fix this situation

Dan Kegel daniel.r.kegel at gmail.com
Fri Dec 9 09:57:35 PST 2005


On 12/9/05, Kay Ramme - Sun Germany - Hamburg <Kay.Ramme at sun.com> wrote:
> As the Wine people said, it may probably be much easier to migrate
> Windows users to Linux by using and improving Wine, than to write better
> counterparts for most Windows applications, not leveraging the Windows
> focused software industry. Linux counterparts are probably only needed
> for these Windows applications, which are unlikely to ever work together
> with Wine.

I expect Wine will only be needed during the transition from Windows to Linux.
Once Linux achieves sufficient market share, app vendors will begin delivering
the Linux apps we need.  Wine will still be needed thereafter, just like
Cobol is needed today, but it won't be used for running new apps.

That said, Wine is *extremely* important during the transition, the
reservations of the IBM folks notwithstanding.
OSDL should consider including Wine in their ISV outreach efforts.
The message might be "If you're not ready to invest in a full native
port of your Windows app to Linux, you should consider using
Wine to do a quick port of your Windows application to Linux.
to judge demand for a Linux version of your product.  Here are a
few case studies of how this was done by ISVs in the past..."

- Dan

--
Why won't Johnny run Linux?  See http://kegel.com/linux/comfort




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