Slashdot Mirror
Inprise Director Resigns in Merger Protest
JohnZed writes, " A press release just came out announcing that a member of Inprise's board of directors, Robert Coates, has resigned in protest over the terms of the pending Corel-Inprise merger. Apparently, all is not going well with Corel's attempts to capture a place in the Linux market. "
I acknowledge your greatness. You truly are first.
Uh that isn't a personal motive. He is looking out for his shareholders. It would have been a personal motive if he owned a substantial share of stocks in microsoft and felt that the merged companies could hurt _microsoft_.
I've read a lot of people posts here on /. about how great it is that companies like Corel and Inprise are "working with the Linux community", but I think that in the long run this can only harm the open source movement and hence Linux.
Both Corel and Inprise are first and foremost large software companies who are used to producing on the Windows platform, and making lots of money while they do so. What does this suggest to you about what is going to happen in the future? It should be obvious - they will move back to ripping their customers off with a closed-source, paid for products dressed up in the name of "extra features" or "enhanced operability" or some such crap.
And ask yourself, what have they really contributed to Linux anyway. Corel have given us their distro, which is buggy, slow and only designed for idiots who should stick to Windoze anyway. If Linux were meant to be simple then we wouldn't be using it in the first place. Corel are simply trying to devalue the skills we, as Linux users, have the intelligence to gain. And then we have Inprise, who are porting their development tools to Linux. Who would want to code using the Delphi or C++ Builder environments? Even for a Windows application their interface sucks, and the underlying code base isn't much better. It supports a vast, bloated and confused class structure which encourages the creation of slow, windy programs. Why do we need software like this when we have tools like vi and make already part of Linux?
I think that the unthinking praise of these companies porting their wares to Linux needs to stop, and people need to take a much closer look at the situation. All Linux needs is the open source community which has made it into the fine OS it is today. The last thing we need is for it to be turned into another Windows where any idiot can use it.
I think Linux would really benefit from an IDE like this that allows people to RAD in an environment that is still changing fairly rapidly and has historically been rather arcane. With Borland, I could write a fast, efficient, sophisticated and pretty GUI application in very quick time.
Does the free software community really believe that free software is an all-or-nothing option? An attitude like that leaves no room for companies that could contribute a lot to the community, but don't yet feel they can build a revenue stream from support alone. I'm sure that the majority of Linux hackers would be able to learn and use Delphi without much support. As to the reasons behind his outburst, I don't expect that having 3 million shares would make him impartial. On the other hand, it'd probably keep Inprise's best interests close to his heart :-)
What is /.'s high priority submission queue, and why are you boycotting it (...till you can find it)?
Huh?
huh, I always thought that Lazarus was a befuddled spirit, channeled by thousands of quazi spiritualists. Does this mean he is being channeled by linux programmers?
Heh, nice try, oh transparent one. Back under your bridge.
... it's not a troll. I humbly apologise if I have stated an opinion which you and other people here disagree with, but that's what I believe. Even on /. people are allowed to have different opinions you know. We're not all as closed minded as you seem to be.
hemos is a jerk. he seems to have his own agenda these days.
Isn't that what linux is all about, choice? Just because you want to feel special about being technicaly inclined doesn't mean other people can't benefit from a more stable, more useful operating system. Look at the big picture for once
Yes, Linux is about choice - the choice to use a superior operating system with quality software. If your choice is to use bloated, poorly-designed applications then go back to Windows, where you'll probably feel more at home.
And what has a more stable, useful operating system got to do with what I was saying? The Corel version of Linux is non-standard and far less reliable than the more standard distributions, and is far more likely as such to put people off.
If you're talking about Delphi here then what on Earth do you mean? The OS isn't programmed in Delphi last time I checked, and I doubt Linus Torvelds is going to change that any time soon. As for applications, Delphi doesn't lend itself to better programs - the skill of the programmer does that. All Delphi does is make programs five times the size they could be if programmers weren't so lazy.
No monkeys were hurt during this incident.
Press releases are not a reliable source of technical information. :)
I want my candy bar back, bitch.
You admit that there are different tools that are appropriate for different jobs in different situations.
No I didn't. I said that I was forced to use that at work because that's what our managers, in all their technical wisdom, have decided we have to use.
Take a deep breath and relax. Nobody's suggesting we rewrite the Linux kernel in QBasic.
No, but I've heard suggestions that they want to rewrite in C++, which would be almost as bad.
Are you trying to imply that the latter follows from the former? That "Visual" [Ha!] C++ is a RAD tool? That's... just not true.
Okay so compared to Delphi/C++ Builder VC isn't much of a RAD tool, but it does try to create MFC code for you. I have also used the Borland tools, not at work but at home back before I discovered Linux. And they aren't particularly usable in a lot of ways. The IDE has extremely non-standard menus, the keyboard shortcuts are totally different from other Windows applications and there is a complete lack of anything like Workspaces like you get in VC++ (actually I think Delphi 5 might have them). I'd call that poor usability by anyone's standards.
> True Linux coders understand the need for small, tightly coded applicaions
No! Bad AC! Lao Tzu said that, in degredation of the true Tao, learning and prudence become exalted. You seem to be a coder who has lost sight of the true goals, and is instead focused on code size and concision. Small, concise code is only a quality of many well-written programs. It is not a litmus test! Emacs is large and vi is small, yet both are great programs. Who are you to judge which is better? So do not be quick to judge this poster's code on size alone! For your penance, fast for three days and re-read Programming Pearls.
This is nothing new. Hemos puts bumper-sticker analysis on every single article he submits. Often on articles others submit. I wouldn't look to slashdot for anything approaching actual journalism.
you must be old like my grampa... Sure it uses up gas, but it's easier.
What your grampa uses gas? Or just produces it like you are doing?
Why would you want Linux to only be availible for computer geeks (I'm one). There's no reason why it shouldn't be easy to use for windows users. If you don't like the corel distro, don't install it. But don't complain about it allowing less computer literate users access to linux.
If we make Linux "simple enough" (read full of useless, patronising features) for Windows users then it will ruin the great OS that we have. Why should we let people with no clue about the workings of a kernel decide what features Linux should have? By deciding that Linux has to make it on to the desktop (WTF does that mean? It's already on my desktop) we are deliberatly crippling it, turning it from the stable and reliable system we love into a poor version of Windows, not one thing for another.
And I don't like the Corel distro and no, I won't install it but it gives Linux as a whole a bad reputation, especially seeing as it is pitched as so-called newbies. If a company like Corel can't manage to put together a distro that works then they should stick to producing Windows applications and leave Linux to those who care.
Oh, and as for vi sucking let me guess - you use emacs right? That program is a perfect example of bad coding - it is bloated practically beyond belief and filled with obsure, useless features. Truly the MS Word of the Linux world.
OpenBSD? Give me a break. OpenBSD is quite possibly the worst operating system ever. It takes the socialist/communist leanings of the shoddy Linux kernel to a whole new level, while adding no new functionality, power, or stability. There is no reason to use it other than to flaunt your defiance of the Almighty and His edict that you should use a good, capitalistic operating system on your machine, such as the Windows 2000 (TM) OS from Microsoft.
Make no mistake about it. God despises communism. This much is evident. We are meant to earn our bread from the sweat from our brow, and those who will not work will not eat. This is Biblical. It is another way to say that God despises freeloaders. Furthermore, there are Biblical commandments against both stealing and coveting property that belongs to your neighbor. The "freeloader" FreeBSD community, characterized by its childish "gimme this" and "gimme that" attitude, is despised by all men of God.
It is morally certain that Christ despises OpenBSD, and that He despises OpenBSD users. It is therefore imperative that all true followers of Christ must learn to hate this operating system and all those who use it.
I, along with thousands of other Delphi developers are looking forward to a tool for Linux which we can use to write business applications. Currently there are no serious tools I know of which can compare to Delphi for ease and speed of development. Not everything has to be open source.
If you wish to put the AllAdvantage link in your sig, that's fine with me. However, I omit signatures and I still see your link. If you must at all, leave it in your sig. Your post should be moderated down.
UGH, please tell me its because its 5 am! We are talkinga bout shares of INPRISE. The company to be merged is INPRISE. The duty of board of directors is too look out for SHAREHOLDERS NOT LINUX HIPPIES. HE IS DOING HIS JOB AND BRINGS UP VALID CONCERNS. SINCE HE IS A SHAREHOLDER (LIKE ALL OTHER BOARD MEMBERS) HE IS ALSO IN TURN LOOKING OUT FOR HIMSELF. However, this is not _personal_.
Go read the press release again.
Now read this, in voiceover:
"I was on the fast track to become Inprise CEO, and I had all kinds of irons in the fire to try and make sure that happened, and now Corel has come along and made all my scheming and office politics a wasted effort, and I'm pissed about it."
Fits nicely, doesn't it?
I'd be highly suprised if Borland even dreamt of adding Linux-specific optimisations.
I don't see how producing proprietary software counts as contributing to the community. Sure, if they want to do that, I have no problem with that, but to present that as contributing, supporting, helping, or aiding the free software community strikes me as a little odd.
I got no dns error for that link, try this link instead.
Yikes. After reading a few pages of this, my head is reeling.
Years of complaints about misbehavior by executives in mergers, and then one does the *right* thing, and we all complaint.
The board of directors are supposed to represent the shareholders. It is generally a Good Thing (tm) for them to have a large enough stake in the company to align their interests with theose of the shareholders. He has over 3 million shares.
When an offer to buy the company comes, directors are supposed to evaluate whether or not the offer is in the best interests of the shareholders, and find a better deal if they can (or, remain solo if they think the shareholders will do better). THat is *exactly* what he is doing here: saying that the shareholders may be better with a different deal,k and that they should go shopping.
Finally, there has been motion towards outside directors in recent years--rather than form the whole board from company management, who have their own agenda (keeping their perks & incomes), the outside directors can freely object, and speak *just* from shareholder interests--*particularly* in the case of mergers.
We've spent the last fifteen or so years trying to create *exactly* this situation, and people are jumping all over him for this. There's even a couple below that think that he's upset because he was scheming to be CEO. Oh my goodness, a CEO (yes, he is CEO of another firm) with expertese in management consulting brought in as an outside director [*gasp*] submitted management suggestions! Why would he do this without ulterior motives???
Maybe he's right about the deal; maybe he's not. But his role in the system is to make exactly this decision; that's why the Imprise shareholders pay him in the first place.
In fact, once you've ported basic libraries, porting other things should be rather easy business. At least, if you've built your app in the Right Way (TM), i.e. each module does his thing. Then you should port widgets, I/O and possibly memory management, and the rest should work.
The sad fact is that debugging the above things usually takes 80% of time, so it doesn't help much anyway...
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
The obvious solution would be to use WINE in toolkit mode. Not sure how native it looks under Linux (i.e., whether it complies fully with the ICCCM, handles WM hints, and plays nice with KDE/GNOME where appropriate), but since it's open-source, Borland could merge VCL with it, and build from there.
Given that Corel have done a lot of work with WINE, and have now merged with Borland, that seems like quite a sensible solution.
Since the merger was announced I find myself repeatedly asking why. The best answers I can come up with are 1) to provide a better dB app for Corel Office (better than Paradox?) to make it a complete product. 2) to provide a suite of developer tools.
On the graphics end they have MS beaten hands down. A good dB app could come in handy, especially one already ported to Unix/Linux. In the end the only real benefit (real enough to endanger shareholder confidence) would be the addition of RAD tools. Corel currently uses VBA, maybe acquiring Delphi will alow them to quit having to play against MS on their turf. Other than that I'm completely baffeled. From a marketing standpoint you have one company suited to businesses and end users and another with products for developers. I just don't see much synergy there unless they completely focus on Linux.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
About an hour after the above was posted it got a +1, funny. Some time later, apparently, another moderator did the same, and while I'm flattered, it wasn't *that* funny and that second mod point could have been put to better use elsewhere. :)
If the second moderator never saw the first moderation then please ignore this post as I am spouting nonsense.
Note to moderators: Don't feel compelled to waste yet another point marking it overrated. I'll try to bear up under the strain of the extra karma
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Anybody got a buzzword to English dictionary I could borrow?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Dephi is a closed source proprierty IDE which Inprise has full controlling power over.
Yeah, we all know that.
I don't see how this application fits in in the free software community
In several ways. First, this isn't necessarily an all-or-nothing game. Just because my OS is open sourced doesn't mean each and every app I run on it has to be. If a commercial product will help me run my business better than the free alternatives, so be it.
Second, a RAD tool that could produce binaries from the same unmodified source code for both Windows and Linux would be beneficial to EVERYONE, with one notable exception: Microsoft. Just imagine what an impact this could have if there were an easy way to convert a Visual Basic project to a Delphi project.
If you support open source as much as you do, then wouldn't you say that people moving from Windows to Linux is a good thing? I would. And if a proprietary, closed source RAD tool helps people do it, then I'm all for it.
Rye must you waste our time with such as this? It makes me wheat to think of all the dough spent on distributing your words around the world. I find it hard to beleive you posted that as an act of concious dill; I can't see what you stand to grain.
...it's late, I must be hungry...
Lettuce have no more of this gherkin off.
Are you trying to imply that the latter follows from the former? That "Visual" [Ha!] C++ is a RAD tool? That's... just not true.
For "bloat", maybe.If a ~250 K executable that does basically nothing -- say, displays "Hello, World!" -- is too "bloated" for you. But you're missing two things:
And "worse usability" ?!? Come on, man! That's just so way-out-in-the-blue...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here
Mergers always involve casualties, even at board level. And even among the survivors there will be those for whom things didn't go the way they wanted. I don't expect the market will read *too much* into this little spat as long as Robert Coates shuts up and goes away soon.
But the charges he is making are certainly interesting. And he appears to be some sort of management consultant, which doesn't fit well with the usual picture of a disgruntled and displaced director forced out and with nowhere else to go.
If Coates makes a rational case in his upcoming letter, the SEC may be compelled to investigate and that would not be too good for Corel (especially given the recent bad publicity surrounding Mike Cowpland's alleged insider dealing). However unjust it may be, mud sticks.
However it plays out, if the merger doesn't go through it'll mean yet another disastrous blow to Corel's share price. In that case Corel may find *themselves* ripe for takeover.
Personally I'd hate to see this happen to Corel but OTOH I can't exactly say I was overjoyed when I the merger was announced. Inprise are already pretty much in bed with the Open Source community and I can't really see how a merger would benefit us. I'd much rather see a diverse market of smaller companies co-operating with each other than a market dominated by a small handful of megacorporations. Megacorporations tend to stuff the customer every opportunity they get; ethics and morals get blown out the window in the name of responsibility to shareholders.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I disagree: Most companies have lost out to microsoft in direct competition. However, eventually someone must confront them, the situation as it is is ridiculous. And the previous confrontation I know of (Word vs. Wordperfect) was corel trying to retain its hold on an outdated program fighting against a clearly superior user interface. Now, corel is using a capable approach, and though a lot of changes are necessary (esp. in X/XFree86 and by extension the window managers - but those less so IMHO), they can be made.
Finally, I don't think microsoft is really unbeatable - and my aims are clearly not Corels but Linux's. So, if this looks subjective: look again, it is.
Apparently, all is not going well with Corel's attempts to capture a place in the Linux market
What has a disagreement between an employee of a merged company and the purchaser have to do with Corel's entry into the Linux market? Answer: nothing. This is FUD, pure and simple, and it pains me greatly to see such a thing coming from a Slashdot editor. You should be ashamed of yourself, Hemos.
For my part, I think Corel deserves all the support they can get; they are a valuable member of the Linux community; they have already contributed a great deal, and I fully expect them to contribute a great deal more; and we ***now can hope for a much more timely release of Delphi on Linux***.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Actually, that's probably what's going to make the VCL port the most painful - Microsoft provided code (in comctrl and friends) to handle drawing and managing standard widgets, so the substantial majority of the graphical components are just very thin wrappers around the Win32 API. Now they're going to have to take those wrapper components and make them act like Win32 without having Win32 behind them.
The main problems are that in 60 % of the cases, they fail. There is a rule, that 1 + 1 should be 3 after a year. It seems that if they fail, they merger again and nobody will see that they failed...
------------------------------
The answer is yes, me.
As a long-time user of products from both companies (and currently a very small stock-holder in both) I have to laugh at your poor knowledge of history. Corel has done some very good things with WordPerfect and the rest of the suite. Unlike Borland (which abandoned Paradox because they were in love with Delphi), Corel has shown a commitment to the products that it has in it's stable. Now I realize that neither company has a stellar performance in this regard, but it depends upon how far back you look. I think Corel has done quite well in the time since they purchased WordPerfect, etc.
Personally, I'm excited about this merger. I don't know about the values involved, but I'm looking at the combined products and talents. Because they have almost no overlap, there isn't any waste in the product lines that needs to be jetisoned. I think it's a little strange that they are just painting this as a "Linux Powerhouse" strategy since they do more than just Linux, but bottom line I believe they will do much better together than separately. Given some of the deals that Corel has been making lately, I've really been puzzled by the drift in stock performance of both companies - but I learned when Corel jumped from $10 to $40 overnight (at the time of the RH IPO) that the stock market does a lot that makes no sense!
As several people have already asked about Delphi for Linux, I'd like to give a pointer to Lazarus. It's a project that is aiming to create a free Delphi for Linux. Medigo was another project but it apparently died while Lazarus is moving faster than ever.
Lazarus uses the Free Pascal Compiler which is already a great pascal compiler. It's semanticly compatible with Turbo Pascal 7.0 but it also contains a lot of Delphi extenstions like long strings. The Lazarus team is writing all the class libraries and an editor.
At the moment lots of classes are done but they could use some help with remaining classes and the editor. Check out their home page and have a look.
I have been very concerned about the merger of Inprise and Corel ever since the announcement. Inprise is by far the more valuable of the two companies, and has many valuable products that I have used; specifically, Visibroker and JBuilder. I have used other Borland/Inprise tools in the past, particularly Delphi and Borland C++.
Corel, on the other hand, has a long history of purchasing the industry's leftovers (such as WordPerfect) and essentially doing nothing with them. I am well aware of Corel Linux, but after purchasing a copy, I found it did not install on any of the current machines I had access to (specifically problems with the video drivers) that other distributions (Red Hat, SuSE) had no problems with. I have never been impressed with Corel quality, and I fear for the negative technical impact the merger will have on Inprise.
I want to use Borland/Inprise tools, and I'm willing and happy to purchase them for both Windows and Unix/Linux platforms. But if the merger is completed, I will have to seriously consider other vendors. I will not stay with the combined companies.
If you're really interested in the details of this merger, check out http://www.pathcom.com/~dmagie/" for an in-depth description of why this is such a bad deal.
If I had to summarize my own views, I'd say the key thing is that it totally undervalues Inprise. Did you know that Inprise has $250 million in actual cash on hands and 0 outstanding debt? But this merger, right now, values it at under $500 million TOTAL. Sure, a year ago the company was bleeding money and nobody wanted to touch it. But now it's breaking even and has a solid long-term plan to be the best, serious provider of cross-platform development tools. As a developer who has to use Windows and Linux (and would LOVE a good Linux RAD tool), I think that's a pretty decent plan.
Top that off with the fact that Corel and Inprise are targetting totally different, non-overlapping audiences (beginning users vs. professional developers), and it really makes me wonder who the hell thought of this deal anyways. --JRZ
C. Robert Coates wanted to turn Inprise/Borland into another Internet based service provider - but Borland's real strength is in Development tools.
Sure, this merger might not "results in substantially higher prices for Inprise shareholders", but compared to turning Borland into YADP (Yet Another Developer Portal), it is great for the developers (and I'm a Delphi developer, and so my opionion does count for something here)
I'm not totally convinced that Corel is a good partner, but Borland has been doing good things lately (Kylix, Open Sourcing Interbase), and I'm prepared to wait and see.
I think you will find that most people who are complaining about the merger don't care about quality software, just about their stock portfolio.
That suck for people like me who just want the best tools for the job - which Borland has always been good at making.
It's my take here that Mr. Coates' motives in this could be very personal. The article states that he owns 3,005,440 shares of Inprise and if Corel's previous acquisition record is to be applied here then those shares could be worth very little in a year or two.
Corel has a strong history of losing to Microsoft in any area in which it decides to go head to head. Probably Mr. Coates believes that his, and his company's interests are best served not in a turf war with Microsoft, but by servicing both camps with much needed multi platform development tools (Borland) and application architechtures (Visigenic).
Hotnutz.com - Funny
Presumably he got a lot of those shares by way of being on the board, and the reason companies do this is to help ensure that the board member's interests are aligned with those of the shareholders. However, where he got the shares from is unimportant.. what's important is that he is doing the right thing for the Inprise shareholders - the fact that he happens to be a major shareholder is really somewhat irrelevant.
Inprise certainly has much greater growth potential and share price appreciation potential on it's own than a combined Corel-Inprise would. Look for Corel's P/E ration to sink from its current 50-60 to a more normal 20-30... the absurd Linux premiums are disappearing, and companies like RedHat, VA Linux and Corel are all sinking to normal business valuations.
IMO, Inprise as a stand alone company with excellent technology is way better positioned to grow as a boutique Linux tools specialist, than Corel is likely to succeed in using Linux to pull it out of it's mismanaged Windows past.
Dephi is a closed source proprierty IDE which Inprise has full controlling power over.
There is no standardization commitee, no competitors. It was designed for Windows.
I don't see how this application fits in in the
free software community. The only reason I might
understand is if your boss orders you to continue develop some windows program, and you could do it under unix, and then just recompile it under windows when it's complete.
How can a missing RAD alone keep someone off creating gui-applications? /. asking what's our preferred development environment, an IDE or "the usual collection" (emacs+gcc+gdb).
I think the word RAD is a buzzword. Sure, you can place out a button a few seconds faster in VB than QT, but how much time of the overall project-time does that account for? 2% ?
(And then, VB and CB++4, (delphi?), don't have layoutmanagers for resolution independent widget-placement).
I would like a poll on
I was talking about QT and such, and QT is far more sofisticated than delphi. I would never see MFC, win32, or X programming as an alternative. Sure, I'd prefer Delphi to MFC, but that's because MFC sucks all the way to the M$-bank. Have you ever tried QT yourself?
Note that he resigned on February 6, before the Board even voted on the merger.
No, MS never saw any code.
MS "invested" is Borland as a settlement to a lawsuit. It wasn't a willing transaction, and they only have non-voting stock.
I think the word RAD is a buzzword. Sure, you can place out a button a few seconds faster in VB than QT, but how much time of the overall project-time does that account for? 2% ?
The real beauty of a RAD environment such as Delphi is that it removes the need to explicitly code the standard boilerplate that has to be done every time you add a user interface control to an application, and the message handlers, and control blocks, and on and on and on...Anyone who's written a Windows (or OS/2 PM, or X, or other stuff) app the old-fashioned way will be amazed at how much time you spend working on the problem to be solved, rather than in the tedious low-level stuff, in a RAD environment.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Have you ever tried QT yourself?
No, I haven't. I guess the central question is: How much time do you spend writing code that does the real work of your application, and how much time do you spend writing code that handles the mechanics of the user interface? My experience with Delphi on the payroll project is that nearly 95% of my time is spent on writing the application, not the mechanics. Can Qt achieve that?
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
The article states that he owns 3,005,440 shares of Inprise and if Corel's previous acquisition record is to be applied here then those shares could be worth very little in a year or two.
Like for example Graphon, that Corel swapped its jbridge technology for a 20% stake when the company was worth $5.50/share and today (about a year later) it is likely to hit $30/share. I don't think he will be complaining if Corel gets him a 400+% return on his investment. (full disclosure: I am a very happy Corel and Graphon shareholder)
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Of course they're not going to release Delphi for Linux anytime in the near future. The reason is that Linux is simply too crap to handle RAD. The Win32 API is wonderful, and all the VCL and OWL and MFC are wrappers for it, with the odd bit of custom graphics. The Win32 API supports multi-byte character sets and Unicode, and many other things (COM+, threads, network, etc.)
Until there is a Linux GUI with a large, flexible and powerful API like the Win32 API, you can kiss Linux RAD goodbye.
I wouldn't be surprised if this merger involves Corel actually developing a decent API for their distro, which their newly-acquired Delphi will then be able to run on, and they will get the jump on the rest of the field.
I have been a slashdot reader and Linux user for the past 1.5 yrs. New, but not too new. I didn't used to give Linus a bath or anything. I am a programmer and yes I have released code under the GPL. (All talk and no action makes Jack a hypocrite.)
My observations of slashdotters, and the Linux community in that period has been that many have a problem seeing and understanding those in the non-community, which is basically the entire world.
The rest of the world does not like screwing around with Perl, OS's , IP stacks, or anything else that we find so enjoyable. Most are interested in having their computers run properly so that can get their report written and go home.
Of the Windows developers I know and or work with, all have long since left multiedit and the like text editors behind. For them to move to Linux, they need to have somthing similar, and all the IDE's I've looked at for Linux aren't there. The only one I know that has a built in GUI builder is KDE Studio. (I would be interested in any others if they are out there.) There is no RAD. If you ask a Linux and VB person to create a treeview menu, Mr. VB is gonna win in a race.
N's comment and several below are baffling to me. The rest of the world doesn't care about standarization commitees or whether it was designed for windows.
Delphi is a tool that is desparately needed for Linux, open preferably or closed if necessary.
Maybe some in the community want to keep it closed to anyone except those that follow all of our rules. If so then Delphi on Linux would be bad. It would bring in a large group of people from the outside, and increase the number of apps, open and closed. I am not one that thinks this is bad.
How can you be against more options in Linux?
- I like pudding.
As a long-time Delphi developer, I'll be incredibly annoyed if they don't continue to improve what I think is the best Windows development tool out there.
At the same time, I'm hoping and waiting for Kylix (Delphi for Linux) to hit the streets. It'll be nice to have modern development tools for Linux. For some more info about Kylix, check this link out
Borland's development tools are awesome. I just hope Corel doesn't manage to screw it up.
You make it sound like it has slipped on a release schedule. It hasn't. Borprise is not usiually specific with release dates far in advance. All that they are saying at this time is that the work is going great, and it will be out this year. There have been some early demos already.
Good software takes time.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Delphi would be a huge contribution to the community.
One of the largest things holding linux back in not tech centric companies is the lack of a RAD. Alot of services companies (insurance companies, book stores, buisness devisions of retailers etc.) will not use linux because much of their internal development requires insane fast turnarounds of pretty gui custom apps. As an example, there's an app we use that reads your login, uses it to autheticate you off a database, waits for your input then goes back to that database to pull up forms and other matching data then dynamically generates partially or completely filled out service and order forms in pdf format and feeds it back to the user for inspection and printing. This app was built from existing components in about a day by one developer using visual basic. The gui is kinda ameturish, but it's pretty and everything works as expected, sure the program is redardedly slow and you need runtime libraries but it went through its entire development cycle in less than a week.
Thats not something you can currently do on Linux. Not the app itself but the end to end development time. Tools like VB, Delphi, Centura, and Java to an extent, are vital to non-tech companies that do inhouse development.
Having Delphi on Linux would upon that market, which is far larger than the tech market, up to opensource. The exposure alone is more than worth the drawbacks.
-Tilde
Old truckers never die, they just get a new peterbilt
He is acting in the interests of the shareholders of Inprise to the best of his ability and knowledge. Clearly he wants to work with Corel. And the fact that he is resigning now rather than immediately after the mreger plans were announced says to me that this is over the details of the merger deal itself rather than the whole idea of merging. Let's see how Inprise and Corel react to the news.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Thanks a lot for the details.
One more thing, just to satisfy my curiosity : did Microsoft at any time have access to VisiBroker or IAS source code?
At that time, Microsoft invested more than $100 millions in Inprise, and that really scared the hell out of me. Like many Java-CORBA developers, I was not too happy to hear that Microsoft - the DCOM protagonist - had just gained access to one of the top CORBA product: VisiBroker.
Now I'm a bit more at ease because we've got two opposite and strong politics:
Now, I really can not understand why Microsoft invested in Inprise. It is the most aggressive competitor they had for long. And I wish them all the best...
Senior engineering position responsible for research and development of the Delphi compiler for Linux. Will work with the entire team to to deliver future versions of Delphi for Windows and Linux.
Would've posted earlier but wanted to apply first ...
threadeds blog
Yeah, I was looking at the Lazarus stuff earlier and was impressed by how far they'd got porting the VCL. On the other hand Borland are also writing a native Linux compiler, which I'd assume will include all of the opimization tricks which make most commercial compilers superior to free ones. Coding this will probably take as long, and I doubt the Free Pascal Compiler will ever produce as tight code as the Kylix one (unless Borland comapletely cock it up).
Yes, I'm aware that compilers are largely OS-independent seeing as all of the OS-specific code is contained within the libraries. However from the Project Kylix press release here, I read the following:
Plans are for Project Kylix to be powered by a new high-speed native C/C++/Delphi compiler for Linux ...
That's the reason I made that statement.
Okay the base classes aren't exactly OS-specific but it's more the classes from TComponent downwards that'll take the time. They are generally just wrappers around direct Win32 API calls and so they'll have to have all of their private methods altered to work under Linux. If there are any functional differences between the Win32 and Linux APIs here then this will also add to the coding time.
Have you ever looked through the entire class hierarchy of the VCL Deplhi uses? If you start at the base class TObject and work down through TPersistant, TComponent, TStream and all of the rest you'd realise that there is a huge amount of work just porting the library across so that it works with Linux rather than the Win32 API.
And that's not even counting the effort required to port the IDE, standard libraries, compiler, debugger, profiler etc. etc. A full RAD tool is a very large program.
Corels stock is in a what seems a freefall getting really low now. I'm glad I threw it out a while ago. Maybe I buy some in the future when they are really low just before there office 2000 is released. If you're planning to ride the linux stockhype try SuSe it will go on the stockmarket monday
Regards,
Hey, is Inprise ever going to release Delphi for Linux. It seems like I recall they announced that quite a while ago. Boy, the platform sure could use a RAD tool like that. But it doesn't really seem like Inprise is all THAT committed to Linux. They're sorta just on the other side of the fence from Metroworks...
I can't believe what a deal this is. Get paid to surf the web.
All this commitment to *Linux* I would much rather see commitment to OpenSource so I can have native versions of Delphi running on platform XYZ..
NO flame wars please.. I like FreeBSD and I would love to be able to run this stuff native mode. Emulation is nice and its only laughed at me a couple of times.
Everyone says commitment to Linux and its a mindset thing. I want commitment to OpenSource or commitment to *nix Platforms!
By Accepting just support for Linux we are limiting ourselves in the same ways we wish to be free.
I realize it is a huge step to just come out and support what im asking versus x86 only Linux binaries but it just needs to be somewhere in the thought process.
Jeremy Allen
Baaaaaa
In order for Linux to be successful beyond its existing niche as a server platform, there has to be a way for organizations to migrate their existing applications and data, and continue to inter-operate with the large, mostly M$ installed base. This is why compatibility with M$ Office products are so critical for StarOffice and Applix. The prospect of Delphi for Linux (Kylix), and perhaps C++Builder for Linux is that it gives organizations one less excuse NOT to use Linux. Enabling that migration path is absolutely critical to increasing the use of Linux and establishing it as a viable long-term solution for businesses. Kernel hackers may consider it a point of pride to use vi, gdb, and make files, but a far larger group of developers wants their cozy IDE. This reminds me of how early fans of a band will desert it when it achieves success because they've "sold out."
DaBuddha
Since Microsoft owns part of Inprise, do they get a piece of Corel when the purchase is complete?
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
you must be old like my grampa... Sure it uses up gas, but it's easier. Why would you want Linux to only be availible for computer geeks (I'm one). There's no reason why it shouldn't be easy to use for windows users. If you don't like the corel distro, don't install it. But don't complain about it allowing less computer literate users access to linux. Large companies don't harm to open source community either. If you are worried about them ripping you off with a closed source "extra features", don't buy it, then start an open source project which adds those same features (if you want them). btw, vi sux (personally opinion of course)