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

[Ian Hilliard]

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.

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