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Novell to Help Port Applications to Linux
An anonymous reader writes "eWeek is reporting that: "Novell announced the program at its European BrainShare 2004 tradeshow in Barcelona, Spain." "Under the initiative, leading software and hardware vendors, including Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Intel Corp., Oracle Corp. and Scali Inc. will work with Novell help their software partners deploy their platforms and solutions on SUSE Linux, according to Novell Inc."
...and to help more people get a crack at running Suse, if you've got some spare bandwidth, fire up a BitTorrent client and head over to The Linux Mirror Project and help mirror the Suse torrent.
The tracker shows lots of leechers for that distro... if you can, hop in and help out!
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Maybe they could help MS port office.
--- http://davidnehme.blogspot.com
What, did you think that Novell threw all those millions of dollars at SuSE for fun? Oh no, SuSE is the core of the next NetWare.
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I wonder if they will help me port Space Invaders from my white Comodore Pet.
Now if only I could find that tape...
but arent linux apps supposed to work with all major distros? and if not, why?
I have not read the FA, but I do hope they port applications to the LSB rather than just to their distro.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
"But this is also aimed at Windows software vendors, Unix software vendors, or vendors who'd developed for other flavors of Linux but who'd like run on SUSE Linux, too," He said.
I love the fact that Linux has the flexibility of having multiple flavors but I really think that making the flavors incompatible is a roadblock for wide acceptance.
People who develop for Windows are going to look at Linux and say, "but if we want to reach everyone we have to deal with RedHat, SUSE, Foo, and DoubleFoo."
Shouldn't companies that want to support Linux as a viable alternative be pushing for a standard to be followed?
Developers, developers, developers!
The monkey-boy dance is left up to the end user.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
... is my friend, as the old saying goes.
And so long as they keep the Unix trademark from SCO with the force of a thousand lawyers with lasers strapped to their heads, they're fine by me.
not all linux. Dont get this confused with open sourcing everything.
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The war on terror is a war for peace
There is no need for BSD-from-scratch disto.
1: All the BSDs are entirely different operating systems, which are lumped into one category becuase of their roots.
2: Since no extra bullshit is thrown in like linux, there is less need for reworking the base.
3: BSD is not obscure in the least, it is rather alive and florishing.
BTW you forgot to mention Solaris, which has it's roots in BSD too. ckj
Somehow, someway, Novell needs to make money out of the deal. By basically giving away their product, it is not likely to happen anytime soon. But if they add an arsenal of software which is certified to run on Linux platform, the landscape drastically changes and these changes will favor Novell.
A big round of applause for this novel (pun intended) idea of Novell...
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I hope this doesn't include groupwise *shudder*
The client has to be the worst, ugliest and clunkiest I have ever had the misfortune to use...
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No mention of Sun Microsystems in that list, hehe...
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Yeah, LSB is great and all in theory but when a major Linux player isn't really doing much to advocate it I don't see what good it is going to do.
That's the problem with cartels (OPEC, NCAA, etc.)
They work only when everyone feels like cooperating. They fail in dramatic fashion when one or more members smells money.
Laws are for people with no friends.
>>"Under the initiative, leading software and hardware vendors, including Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Intel Corp., Oracle Corp. and Scali Inc. will work with Novell help their software partners deploy their platforms and solutions on SUSE Linux, according to Novell Inc."
What partners?
It was in the application space that Novell lost it's market and mindshare to Microsoft.
Sorry, but this is really the ugliest and most irritating topic logo. Does it have to be that aggressive shade of red? It hurts my eyes!
I don't think it's bad either way, just curious as to how it's going to shake out. Any Linux usage is good in my book. More apps available is very good. More alternatives to the bloated wares of Castle Redmondore, priceless.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
...release specs and/or open-source device drivers, and become "Linux compliant"?
I guess if the big companies want to lend a hand, that'd be my suggestion.
Let's be serious, drivers are one of the biggest issues, crossing all of the common uses of Linux. Why are we, in 2004, still stuck in the 1994 mentality, still begging most hardware manufacturers for specs and open drivers, and still reverse-engineering? I mean, it's probably fair to say Linux is over the hump in terms of name recognition at this point.
Sure, it's a lot better than it was, but our mindshare in the PC hardware world is abyssmal compared to what it should be. Even hardware vendors that "support" us still often do so with binary drivers; often shitty, scary ones that never get rev'd.
Can the myth that closed-source drivers, or secret specs, are somehow good for a hardware business still be thriving in 2004? Is it really that much more important than the sales you miss out on when your competitors embrace Linux before you do?
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Some might not have noticed, but it seems to be the first topic with the "N" logo from Novell. I don't like the company in particular, but you to admit that Novell is betting high on Linux and open source - although they are not abandoning their closed source software like Zenworks, a strategye they call "shared source".
I'd like to see more heavy-hitter funding and support for tools for writing cross-platform applications like the mono project (http://www.mono-project.com/) and wxWidgets (http://www.wxwindows.org/.
"I love the fact that Linux has the flexibility of having multiple flavors but I really think that making the flavors incompatible is a roadblock for wide acceptance."
Check out the GPL.
While there are MINOR differences in the DEFAULT installations of the various distributions, there is NOTHING that makes them "incompatible" with each other.
Sure, one might (by default) install ext2, another ext3, another ReiserFS, but that doesn't mean that you can't run all of the above on any distribution.
It might take a kernel recompile in the worst cases.
For all the hype and claims about Linux "incompatibilities", I have yet to see any package that was not installable on any other distribution. Nor do I believe that there ever will be one.
A lot. For the most part Windows has been more consistent through various versions. Most of 95 would run on 98, and in fact a LOT will even run on all versions. There are huge exceptions, but these are with apps being produced by componies that want you to buy the latest version, and so the fault lies as much with them as it does with Microsoft.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Here is a replied I received from the UltraEdit peoples :
Hello Frederic,
Thanks for your message and suggestion. Ian has looked into this and
other tools. The biggest barrier here is that much of UltraEdit's
code is based on MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes). Because of this
porting UltraEdit to Linux is not a minor undertaking as functions
using MFC would have to be completely rewritten from scratch.
Thanks, Troy
Thursday, September 16, 2004, 5:28:25 AM, you wrote:
fcsb> Hello,
fcsb> is there any plan to port UltraEdit to Linux ?
fcsb> If so, you could for example use the Qt C++ framework
fcsb> from Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com/) to speed up the
fcsb> process
fcsb> so that UltraEdit would available under KDE
fcsb> (www.kde.org), the Linux's most used desktop system.
fcsb> There is plenty of Linux text editor but none of them has
fcsb> ever reached the level of quality of UltraEdit,
fcsb> so I really think you could gaim some market shares up there too !
fcsb> sheers,
fcsb> Frederic
This is particularly important for companies like Novell who are targeting corporate customers, most of whom run tailored software for their business purposes (as well as the office stuff for their admin, and other general purpose software).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hmmm perhaps because Novell _OWNS_ SUSE now?
Regards,
Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
Suse = NOVEL
what?
Through some combination of Lotus mis-steps and Microsoft strategy, Microsoft was able to wean the market off their dependence on 1-2-3. OpenOffice is a good start (not quite there yet) in providing part of the alternative.
Some people have suggested that the Linux platform needs to do more than just mimic Windows applications to offer a compelling reason for people to switch. I agree. But OpenOffice is a necessary, if not sufficient, element in making it a viable alternative.
Microsoft? They aren't listed.
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What applications are they to port? I haven't heard a single application mentioned. Why the mystery?
From the bits and pieces of news and info that I know of wxWindows, porting a MFC app to wxWindows (cross platform) is 98% of the time just a matter of search and replace.
So technically there is no excuse, however they were responding to a QT framework question.
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
Novel is in a great place now not to break microsofts monopoly or to become number one but to give the industry a reliable set of software products that run on more than one operating system. The days of Windows only or Mac only are numbered if all goes well. And that gives consumers a much great er choice in the end and even if they choose to always go with one vendor or not it doesnt matter the choices are there. If the choices are there peple will choose.. and the world will keep spinning and thats what makes the world a great place.. options.. and flexibility is also a bonus.
Of course, the KDE project could always write a replacement for Microsoft's MFC. They could call it... wait for it... KFC. [Cue lame joke music, cut to commercial.]
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I meen thats like a bug in the Monkeys software. a Pathing problem of sorts.
Yes It seems it's easier to port from MFC to wxWindows :b rar y/l-mfc/
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/li
Well, not really. It's still a huge leap. Then you have the problem that wxWindows apps don't really feel native on any platform, which makes it a suboptimal solution. If you're going to port an app IMHO you should do it properly and get native UI in there (GTK or Qt) and maybe leave the backend to Winelib until you've got it all ported over to platform abstractions that work, unlike widget toolkit abstractions.
I'd love to know how this "porting and migration center" is going to deal with all the desktop software that isn't as easy to port as UNIX server software is. It's not even like OpenOffice can deal with all MS Office documents, in particular the ones where people abuse Excel as a database, have MS Access databases lying around, write VBScript apps in Word etc.
You can run both Notes 6.5.1 and Photoshop using CrossOver Office.