Re: Too late! Window hasta la vista 5308 is now fully operational.

[OK]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 19:40:29 +0100, Ian Hilliard
<nospam@hilliardtech.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 20:01:43 -0800, Rex Ballard wrote:
>
>> The irony is that Linux actually had easier to use tools.  Tools like
>> Python, Perl/TK, GTK, and Java AWT made it really easy to create really
>> simple and effective GUI interfaces to Linux applications.  On the
>> other hand, coding GUI interfaces in C or C++ with core toolkits was a
>> bit more challenging.  Microsoft was also really promoting the
>> dailights out of Visual Basic as the primary interface - partly to make
>> sure that applications could not be easily ported to Linux.
>
>Back in the mid-90's, Unix had X11 and Motif. There was a clone of Motif
>for Linux, but it was on very shakey ground. It was expected to be banned,
>as an illegal copy, at any time. Programming X11 directly was a great
>recipe for insanity. Motif was a little better, but not much.
>
>Microsoft came out with Visual Studio, where it was possible for a
>programmer, who didn't really understand about programming graphics, to
>produce reasonable looking GUIs. That sold Windows to the developers.

Windows was "sold" to the developers *long* before Visual Studio,
Visual C++, MFC and the like came out.

>Unfortunately, Linux still lacks a tool like Visual Studio, which makes
>the development of GUI software a matter of putting the bits where you
>want them and then compile, all in the same IDE. I know Borland had Kylix,
>which was supposed to do this, but it seems to have been still born. To
>that, QT has quite a high seat cost, if you want to produce commercial
>software. WxWidgets seem to insist on including GTK, which instantly makes
>it GPL. 
>
>The managers of most software houses will not release their software under
>GPL, as this would permit the competition, which had not gone GPL to steal
>all their know-how and gain a competitive advantage. If Linux wants to
>become main-stream, this is an issue which needs to be settled, rather
>sooner than later.
>
>Ian