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the Linux platform needs ... A set of standardized GUI libraries that are free for both commercial and open-source applications.

You mispelled "proprietary" there. It's cool though, lots of people do it.

Also I'm not really sure why you think the Linux kernel needs widget toolkits.

Anyway, yeah there's totally no toolkits that allow proprietary apps.

Ever heard about lesstif and openmotif? The only thing crusty here is your thinking.

THIS SECTION CONTAINS MY PERSONAL OPINIONS AND DOESN'T REPRESENT AN OFFICIAL POSITION OF THE XFree86 PROJECT.

The first incarnation of this version of libGLw used eight header files from LessTif, four for each Motif version. LessTif is covered by the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL) whose terms are not compatible with the XFree86 licensing policy. Since the copyright holder of LessTif is the Free Software Foundation (FSF), I asked Richard Stallman, president of FSF and so called "leader of the Free Software movement", permission to redistribute a copy of those eight headers under XFree86 terms, still maintaining the FSF copyright.

Observe that I was not asking him to change the license of LessTif as a whole, but only to allow me to distribute copies of some header files containing function prototypes, variable declarations and data type definitions. Even so, Stallman said no because the files contained "more than 6000 lines of code". Which code? The LessTif headers are mostly copies of the Motif ones and don't contain any original GNU "code"! I can't still imagine a reason for Stallman's negative answer except for paranoia. He seems to ignore what Motif is and that LessTif's API is simply a copy of Motif's one.

After spending some time, I made my own headers, that became much smaller than the previous ones because I included only a subset of the Motif API and merged everything into four files: 417 lines instead 6000. Humm, perhaps I should be grateful to Sallman too :-).

Yes, they are from the University of Idaho. I'm surprised no one has heard of the hungry programmers. They developed lesstif

Will Lesstif apps transparently link to Motif libraries?

Perhaps. From the FAQ:

Compatibility can have several degrees, the ultimate one being binary compatibility. This is the one we're aiming for. This can be tested even today on most platforms on which shared libraries are supported : if you also have Motif(R) shared libraries, you can choose which library to use by setting an environment variable such as LD_LIBRARY_PATH prior to executing an application.

If I buy Solaris I have to pay extra for the compiler

Or use GCC and Lesstif.

If I buy Windows I have to pay extra for the compiler

Or use GCC and the w32api package.

The problem with programming at the lower level, like Xlib, is that it takes 2 years to get the first version of your program out. Then you move on to Xt and now it only takes only 1 year. Then you move on to Motif and it only takes you 6 months. Then you move on to Qt and it only takes 3 hours. Of course you want it to look slick so you use kdelibs.

In this case, someone considering Open Motif has the choice to use an alternative that provides similar functionality.

Lesstif is source-compatible with TOG's Motif and is under Lesser GPL.

With DVDs, you don't have an alternative

VHS. Or video capture to MPEG-4.

Both Gnome and KDE are available, and highly visible, when you install any recent Red Hat, or many other distros.

the lst time I looked into it a couple of years back, Motif cost real money

What are the prerequisites for building the Open Inventor software? Linux (glibc 2.x) or IRIX, X11R6, Motif, C++ compiler and OpenGL.

Does anyone know how closely tied it is to Motif? Is it the whole thing, or just a small part? How hard would it be to use it in, say, a GTK+ program without dragging Motif (or even Lesstif) along with it?

(I would download it myself and take a look, but their server seems to be /.'ed.)

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

I agree with almost everything Richard Stallman has to say on this one. The only major beef I have with Stallman's open letter is with the following sentences: "Most programs that were written for Motif can use LessTif with no changes. Please support the free software community by using LessTif rather than Motif. Some finishing work still needs to be done on LessTif; to volunteer, contact lesstif@hungry.com."

Stallman's use of the term "finishing work" is misleading. Stallman fails to point out that LessTif presently implements the base, CDE-unaware Motif 1.2 widget library and little else. mwm, UIL, and libMrm are a long way from merely requiring "finishing work." The Hungry Programmers plan to support Motif 2.1 but freely admit in the LessTif FAQ that compatibility with Motif 2.0 will "take a long time."

Beyond having "made room for CDE compatible widgets and applications," the prospects for CDE implementation are murkier. The LessTif FAQ says that "the people in the eXode project...are working on" CDE, but the Enhanced X Open Desktop (eXode) Project Goals page flatly states that "eXode won't be the free CDE."

Thus, it's a stretch to say that the current LessTif requires only "finishing work" to be fully compatible with Motif 1.2, and it's even more questionable if the aim is parity with OpenMotif 2.1.30, let alone CDE.

By the way, the above is not meant to put down the LessTif project or the A HREF="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmers -- they've done excellent work thus far.

If everyone were to switch to LessTif in its current form, there'd be little, if any, incentive for anyone to move forward from Motif 1.2 to Motif 2.1 -- Motif would either ossify or fork at 1.2, and either way, Motif 2.1 (even as an API) would more or less cease to exist. Those who wrote their programs to the Motif 2.1 API would have to back-port their code to work with the Motif 1.2-based LessTif API (or switch GUI toolkits altogether). I won't offer my position on that issue at the moment, but when advocating LessTif as an alternative to OpenMotif, Stallman should have at least acknowledged it.

Stallman may or may not merely be assuming that any release of Motif beyond 1.2 is irrelevant (since, like it or not, Motif 1.2 is still the predominant version in use), but it is careless of him, and a little troubling, that he doesn't mention it at all.

However, this quibble aside, I agree with the thrust of what Stallman wrote.

try www.lesstif.org

However, you can get the GPLed Motif clone Lesstif It's pretty close to complete (It's at least as close to Motif as Mesa is to OpenGL). I expect distros such as Mandrake will include it as standard in the near future - the only reason you don't see it more is because RH don't like LessTif, since it pretty much killed one of their early profit-making schemes, which was selling a commercial Linux Motif implementation.

I actually find Motif a rather well thought-out toolkit, if a little dated. It is NOT hard to program, and some aspects of it DO make more sense than Qt and GTK.

Qt and Gtk fail to learn from earlier developments in GUI technology, particularly the dynamic, per-application themeability, graceful resizing handling etc. that happened on the Amiga with MUI.

I also hate the Qt signal/slot kludge - they should implement it properly (like libsigc does for gtk--) for Qt 3.0 - I'd happily help, if my current employer would let me...

Anyway, i would love to see motif become open source, so it could be increased in productivity and life as far as programming in unix/linux/other . . .

It's called "LessTif".

My company has a Motif product. When I ported to Linux, I used LessTif. Using LessTif nearly everything compiled out of the box and most things ran correctly. After getting the non-Motif-related bugs out of the way, I only ended up with about 4 bugs that I can blame on LessTif itself. I definitely recommend using LessTif if you need to use Motif on Linux.
--

For those who don't know, LessTif is a LGPL'd replacement for Motif. It provides a nearly complete clean-room reimplementation of the Motif 1.2 API, and is source code-compatible with it. Most apps written for Motif run out-of-the box on when compiled with LessTif, and we want to know about those which don't.

Also, even though binary compatibility isn't a main goal of the LessTif project, some apps (including Netscape 4.5+) which are dynamically linked with OSF/Motif will also run when linked against LessTif. Getting this far is a tremendous accomplishment of the LessTif programming team (I'm on the core team, but I don't do much of the programming, as I mostly coordinate the releases.)

Jon Christopher
LessTif Releasemeister

What does Motif provide that other window managers and complete enviroments (GNOME etc) don't provide?

Well, Motif is a GUI toolkit, not just a window manager (but includes mwm) or environment (but these days includes CDE).

As for what it provides that GTK or Qt don't: compatibility with the source code of zillions of apps (many for in-house use) originally developed on one of the proprietary unices, and compatibility with the expertise of the zillions of long-time Unix programmers who wrote those apps. And while Motif itself may not be open-source, Lesstif is, and is completely compatible with all the Motif programs I had lying around to try it with (none of which use the more obscure corners of Motif that Lesstif hasn't got to yet).

Back in the earlier GUI toolkit wars (OpenLook vs Motif) I favored OpenLook, but Motif won out and I've used it for years. If I'm developing an app even for Linux I'll use {Mo,Less}tif as first choice because it does the job and I can't be bothered (yet) to learn Qt or GTK.

There's also a hell of a lot more documentation (books, etc.) on the Motif API and Motif style guides, etc, (all applicable of course to Lesstif) than there is for either GTK or Qt.

Qt and GTK have their own advantages, of course, but the "installed base" of {Mo,Less}tif apps and expertise (and adjuncts like GUI builders) is too large for it to be casually dismissed.

And Motif is vital for any enterprise who wants to move their legacy Unix apps to Linux.

> Besides, if they chose Motif they'd have to licence it, adding it to the price of Delphi.

Or use Lesstif instead. (Modulo licensing issues with that, since I believe Lesstif is GPL'd.)(Er, I just checked, and Lesstif is LGPL'd. No problem.) Which would be great if it helps improve Lesstif.

Also, both Motif and qt are commercial and as such require commercial licensing (for qt only if you're planning a commercial product).

...and many Linux users might not have Motif on their systems, as they may not have wanted to pay for it (or may only want free software on their systems, but those folks aren't worth worrying about if you're making commercial software, obviously).

There is, of course, LessTif, which is a free-software Motif clone, and which at least some Linux users might have installed. I've not used it, so I can't say whether it's "close enough" to Motif for most purposes; I have the impression it might be - check out the LessTif site for more information.