Posted by
Roblimo
on from the extend-and-embrace-with-a-smile dept.
Alowishus writes "ZDNet reports that MainSoft, a Microsoft Partner and Windows source licensee is working on a Linux version of MainWin - a product that makes the Win32 API available on Linux, thus enabling cross-platform development. A demo version is supposed to be available in a few weeks."
Why Microsoft is scared, and why they won't win
by
Zigg
·
· Score: 5
What makes or breaks an OS? A short trip down at least the recent history of failed computers and those that stick around for the long run should show you.
It doesn't matter how wonderful your operating system is. It doesn't even really matter how stable, or how many features it has, or anything. No company, not even one as big as Microsoft, can create an OS and then create every application that will ever be needed for it. This requires inspiring a development community to develop for your OS. I submit that this is the reason that lesser-known, though probably superior, operating systems have failed and others have grown up -- by enticing or turning away developers.
Microsoft has virtually overlooked one part of the development community for quite some time now; the public domain/freeware/open source part. Admittedly, open source for Microsoft platforms is still next to nonexistent; most software with an open source license is also ported to UN*Xish platforms; but until Linux started taking off, the PD/freeware crowd was still going strong on Windows.
Now recently, many companies who previously sold software for Microsoft platforms almost exclusively have announced their intention to bring their applications to Linux. I firmly believe this is largely due to the precursor loss of the PD/free/open crowd. I know I've seen this pattern before. My best guess is that it follows the learning pattern of a programmer; whichever OS and development tools you can get your hands on without spending a fortune, you start to learn to develop for -- later in life, when you want to make money for developing, you still feel most comfortable on that platform.
In any event, Microsoft now sees too late the pending loss of their developer base, and is taking the completely incorrect route to recapture it. MainSoft's product will probably address the high-end, large-scale, mucho dinero market quite well. However, it won't do anything for the PD/free/open community, and as such it won't be anything more than a temporary win. If Microsoft was really interested in recapturing developer share -- which they absolutely must do to survive, they need to relax their ever-tightening grip and open everything up.
If I were running Microsoft, I would open up MainWin. Make it completely open source. I don't think it would be good for the developer community at all but it would definitely insure a win.
Microsoft is likely willing to spend an awful lot of money on "market research". At this point, they are probably just trying to find out how viable a platform Linux is. The added bonus is, if they port Win32 now, they won't have to port it later if they find that they need to ship something under Linux. This is also a cheap way to test the FUD waters. After all a lot of people are thinking of porting apps to Linux. If MS announces that Win32 may support Linux "Real Soon Now", those plans may be de-railed by companies that don't want Linux porting to be a waste of their time...
My question is this, though: what underlying toolkit will they use. Will it be based on raw Xlib (good for speed), Motif (a lose just about all the way around, at this point), GTk+ or Qt (good, full-featured toolkits with powerful features "free") or GNOME or KDE (even more features than their underlying toolkits, but even more bloat to put the world's most bloated toolkit on top of). I think that at this point even GNOME is not in a position to be a simple back-end to a Win32 port (i.e. there is not a 1-1 mapping from all Win32 features to GNOME, yet), so there's going to be a lot of glue code no matter what. I'd hate to see Win32 apps released for Linux, and be 10 times slower out of the gate.
This will be fun to watch, but I doubt it will pan out as anything serious just yet.
Re:Don't place any bets
by
Guy+Harris
·
· Score: 4
Microsoft is likely willing to spend an awful lot of money on "market research". At this point, they are probably just trying to find out how viable a platform Linux is.
Microsoft may or may not be spending money on this; MainWin is a product of Mainsoft, not Microsoft, so all Microsoft may have done is said "we won't yank your license for the Windows source in MainWin if you do a Linux port", they haven't necesarily contributed money or other resources to this.
(It is interesting to note that they don't already have an x86 UNIX in the list of platforms on which MainWin is available, so, if they port it, Linux may be the first UNIX-that-runs-on-a-PC on which MainWin is available.)
My question is this, though: what underlying toolkit will they use. Will it be based on raw Xlib (good for speed)
Probably. I don't have IE-for-Solaris (the port of which was done with MainWin) handy, but I don't remember it being dynamically linked with any toolkit libraries (although I also don't remember whether it was dynamically linked with Xlib, so that doesn't by itself prove anything). The UI of IE-for-Solaris is somewhat Motifish, but looks different enough that it's unlikely to be Motif. I suspect it's neither GTK+ nor Qt, either - I seem to remember the bevels on the scrollbars being narrower than those of Motif, GTK+, or Qt.
They're extremely unlikely, I suspect, to use KDE or GNOME - not all Linux systems necessarily have those, and they don't require either of them for IE/Solaris, so MainWin doesn't require them.
Re:Don't place any bets
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4
There are references to it in the DOJ vs. Microsoft lawsuit, Gordon Eubanks, former Symantec CEO denies that Symantec is in a First-Wave relationship with Microsoft: [transcript excerpt, 1999.06.16]: "I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE FIRST-WAVE PROGRAM, AS I TOLD YOU" [...]. Then Boies submitted the Symantec-Microsoft First-Wave contract into evidence, which was signed when Eubanks was CEO:-) Microsoft counsel protested violently: [transcript excerpt]: 'THESE DOCUMENTS WERE PRODUCED BY SYMANTEC, WHICH IS NOT REPRESENTED HERE BY COUNSEL AT THE MOMENT, BUT IT'S MORE HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL. MICROSOFT REGARDS THIS DOCUMENT AS PROPRIETARY INFORMATION WHICH IS NOT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.' Eventually the judge declined to seal the document, and the trial transcript wasnt edited either. Then Boies continued to evaluate how the First-Wave relationship affected Symantec: [transcript exceprt]: "THEY ASKED ME TO WRITE--IF I WOULD BE WILLING TO EXPRESS AN OP-ED PIECE ON THE OPINIONS OF THE INDUSTRY." [...] Boies: [transcript excerpt]: "AND, INDEED, MICROSOFT ACTUALLY PREPARED THE FIRST DRAFT OF THAT OP-ED PIECE FOR YOU, DIDN'T THEY, SIR?". which turned out to be true.
I have wanted to be able to use Internet Explorer for Linux for a long time. I don't like many Microsoft products but IE is one thing microsoft did right.... It crashes less on me than any other browser I have used. So until Mozilla gets to a stable point, I may start using IE! On the other hand I think we need to keep an eye on this type of stuff. If alot of windows programs start flowing into *nix it could cause interest in open source to taper off. Alot of people get into developing open source products because they want to do something in their OS of choice and find out that there arn't any programs out there that do what they want... If there are alot more closed source programs out there coming over from windows, not only will there be less "why doesn't my OS have one of those" projects and more people learning the windows api and going closed source because its common with that api. I know some people are going to flame me for suggesting using Microsoft products but grow up. If a company has a good product I am going to use it. If you have a valid counter or something to add to my statements please add them but if all you are interested in letting people know is how much you hate Microsoft, please don't waste everybodys time
The strategy is to make NT relevant
by
Lucius+Lucanius
·
· Score: 4
The whole point is to make NT apps run under *nix. Since the old school unix platforms are being drowned by the linux wave, MS is latching on to linux as an interoperability platform to stamp out. It's a clever tactic - basically, their goal in buying mainsoft was to position and elbow in NT. This is part of the elbowing process.
Nobody can accuse MS of being stupid. Their whole game plan in this area is to make NT indispensable.
This reminds me of an Andy Grove statement about how MS has its structure set up to act like antibodies reacting - they use email and feedback mechanisms to react rapidly and carry out their defense. It's very effective. Sure, people accuse them of being clueless, but they're the ones laughing. It's clever, and it works far more effectively than any other large software company.
BTW - Mary Jo Foley has been on a pro-linux anti-MS spree for months now. A lot of her articles are quite insightful too, though I suspect she's lost some of her MS insiders at this point. And she does read/. a few times a day.
We won't see shareware/freeware ported, since the cost of this package will almost definitely be quite prohibitive...shareware from big names like Id Software... err.. well, Id's already doing native Unix stuff... okay, shareware like WinZip and the like might get ported... and I'm sure someone at WinAmp would take a swat at it... but by and large, such a thing will almost definitely be priced out of the range of shareware/freeware coders...
Also, bear in mind that the Linux scene has "advanced" only in the opinions of some. For those of us whose primary concerns are quality, tight code and the free software ethic, the Linux scene has horribly DEVOLVED, not evolved. For those who are focusing on increased availability of productivity/multimedia/game/etc. apps and device drivers, yes, these are definitely the best of times. It all depends on where your priorities lie...
-- With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Typical bait and switch Microsoft tactics. A sane business simply should not rely on a cross-platform solution that is fundamentally dependent on one of the target platforms! (Microsoft NT source code in this case) Microsoft did this with Bristol as well: gave them NT source code access, Bristol developed a WIN32 API implementation for Unix and this indirectly baited Unix companies like AutoDesk to port their app to NT and still keep it running on Unix as well. A year or two later Microsoft suddenly increased the licensing cost of the NT source code five-fold. Five-fold *per client license* price increase. What did this mean? NT-only versions of the software remained cheap, the Unix port suddenly got very expensive. Bristol actually went ahead and sued Microsoft (and lost the case badly), and AutoDesk was stranded in the NT space. Btw., the market share of AutoDesk's AutoCAD has dropped significantly since then, so this should be a warning to other businesses. Now how is MainSoft different? Sure it will work for a year or two, until President Bush orders his antitrust chief to settle with Microsoft (under ridiculous conditions). Microsoft will be the true 1100-pound gorilla again it used to be, and MainSoft will be yet another Bristol. Keep in mind that Microsoft can increase the price of the NT source code license unilaterally at any time, to almost any value. It's theirs after all, so if you depend on it thats your problem. What should we Linuxers do? Just ignore them and write cool Linux-API (Unix) apps, Micro/MainSoft are losers;) Maybe ask MainSoft wether Microsoft guarantees (contractually) that MainSoft will get easy, fair-price, volume-independent and early access to NT source code (and source code in development) in the future.
-- --Coke
Why are we fighting over the OS?
by
flieghund
·
· Score: 5
I am becoming resigned to the fact that the operating system, for all intents and purposes, is meaningless. I use a limited number of programs on a day to day basis; the three that I use the most are:
- AutoCAD 14 - form*Z 3.1 - Photoshop 5.5
(I am an architecture geek, if this wasn't obvious.) I have found that (at least in the case of Photoshop and form*Z) it matters next-to-none what OS I am on -- both run equally well and without any major differences on either platform. I'm stuck using a Windows machine for AutoCAD: Autodesk (its makers) decided after Release 12 (?) that it was no longer financially worthwhile to support two versions for platforms that made up less than 10% of the marketplace combined (namely, Mac and Unix). But I guess I'm okay with that, because it has allowed some nice CAD programs to flourish, at least on the Mac platform.
So, the point: I hate Windows; I specifically hate all the little crap that it does, its bugs, its "helpful features" that are anything but. However, due to my field of study and the choice of programs available, I'm rather stuck on a Windows machine. How I long to use Linux, Be, or *anything* other than Windows! Alas, I cannot. I was literally a few hours away from installing linux when I found that WINE cannot even run *older* versions of AutoCAD and form*Z and Photoshop, let alone execute the latest versions.
(I realize, and have heard arguments to the like before, that there are "similar" programs available on the linux platform. But is that really the solution you want to promote? "Don't like your OS? Switch and relearn all of the programs you use!" Harumph. For example: I've seen Gimp, I've dabbled with Gimp, I still vastly prefer the look, feel, and features of Photoshop. Sorry.)
I welcome anyone who wants to create the ability to escape the curse of Windows, even if it is MS itself at the heart of it. Remember what I said at the beginning: the OS is irrelevant. There are Holy Wars being faught over Mac vs. Win vs. Linux vs. Be vs. BSD vs. etc. Why? To me, operating systems are the roads of the world; programs are the cars. No one fusses about the roads they drive on (well, almost no one), but few people miss an opportunity to fuss about their car.
Okay, a fuzzy analogy, I apologize. (A wee bit tired right now...) Now, I'm an architecture geek, remember, not a computer geek; but try this: How much of what you do with your computer, productivity-wise, actually has anything directly to do with the operating system? I've examined my habits, and the answer is almost none. With few exceptions, almost everything I do on a computer involves programs that run on the OS, even telnet and plaintext editing. It seems to me that programs are where the money really is, not the OS.
Now, I am *NOT* advocating a "one world, one OS" system; rather, I'm envisioning a world in which there are multiple vendors for your OS, all of which are essentially the same. Think of it as the gas you put in your car -- with some minor performance variations, the gas from Shell will get you where you're going just as good as the gas from Mobil. What gas you put in your car doesn't matter nearly as much as where you are going.
Okay, to summarize: OS, irrelevant; programs, reason for having a computer; anything that blurs the distinction between one OS and the next (or makes the OS distinction a distant second to program usability), good news indeed.
-- "I came here to kick ass and chew
bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum."
MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
Why Wine will be Better (IMHO)
by
_Gnubie_
·
· Score: 4
Wine has come a long way in the past year. I can only hope this doesnt cause wine to lose its momentum.
Mainwin allows windows code to be compiled on linux into native executables. Wine does this too but also allows the loading of native Win binaries to be loaded and executed using the wine win32api implementation.
Will the Mainwin people implement directX and write a direct3d to glx translation layer like the Wine crew are doing? Personally I doubt it. Wine also allows the loading of _native_ linux libs from a win32 program. I can fire up halflife and wine will load the _linux_ glide lib and give me full 3d acceleration.
Last but certainly not least... Wine IS open source. You want to hack in something that makes the widgets look like GTK ones? fine! try doing that with Mainwin.
That's just plain Reverse FUD
by
Foogle
·
· Score: 5
You've never even seen MainWin, and you're saying that Wine is better? Maybe in theory, sure, but let's be honest - Wine isn't really a viable solution except in a few (few) cases. There aren't more than a handful of programs that run flawlessly under it. And that's what a company needs to run Win32 programs under Linux - flawlessness. Anything else won't cut it, and they'd be better off using WinNT instead.
Same goes for MainWin. If they don't provide a stable system that can run just about any Windows app then they will not succeed. OpenSource won't even come into play with this - these guys are MS partners: They can produce code that's more compatible, because they probably have licenses to use the original source from MS. Don't kid yourself, they've got the upper hand. And as for customization, well I'd like my programs to work first, before I start worrying about theming, okay?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Slashdot Mirror
What makes or breaks an OS? A short trip down at least the recent history of failed computers and those that stick around for the long run should show you.
It doesn't matter how wonderful your operating system is. It doesn't even really matter how stable, or how many features it has, or anything. No company, not even one as big as Microsoft, can create an OS and then create every application that will ever be needed for it. This requires inspiring a development community to develop for your OS. I submit that this is the reason that lesser-known, though probably superior, operating systems have failed and others have grown up -- by enticing or turning away developers.
Microsoft has virtually overlooked one part of the development community for quite some time now; the public domain/freeware/open source part. Admittedly, open source for Microsoft platforms is still next to nonexistent; most software with an open source license is also ported to UN*Xish platforms; but until Linux started taking off, the PD/freeware crowd was still going strong on Windows.
Now recently, many companies who previously sold software for Microsoft platforms almost exclusively have announced their intention to bring their applications to Linux. I firmly believe this is largely due to the precursor loss of the PD/free/open crowd. I know I've seen this pattern before. My best guess is that it follows the learning pattern of a programmer; whichever OS and development tools you can get your hands on without spending a fortune, you start to learn to develop for -- later in life, when you want to make money for developing, you still feel most comfortable on that platform.
In any event, Microsoft now sees too late the pending loss of their developer base, and is taking the completely incorrect route to recapture it. MainSoft's product will probably address the high-end, large-scale, mucho dinero market quite well. However, it won't do anything for the PD/free/open community, and as such it won't be anything more than a temporary win. If Microsoft was really interested in recapturing developer share -- which they absolutely must do to survive, they need to relax their ever-tightening grip and open everything up.
If I were running Microsoft, I would open up MainWin. Make it completely open source. I don't think it would be good for the developer community at all but it would definitely insure a win.
Microsoft is likely willing to spend an awful lot of money on "market research". At this point, they are probably just trying to find out how viable a platform Linux is. The added bonus is, if they port Win32 now, they won't have to port it later if they find that they need to ship something under Linux. This is also a cheap way to test the FUD waters. After all a lot of people are thinking of porting apps to Linux. If MS announces that Win32 may support Linux "Real Soon Now", those plans may be de-railed by companies that don't want Linux porting to be a waste of their time...
My question is this, though: what underlying toolkit will they use. Will it be based on raw Xlib (good for speed), Motif (a lose just about all the way around, at this point), GTk+ or Qt (good, full-featured toolkits with powerful features "free") or GNOME or KDE (even more features than their underlying toolkits, but even more bloat to put the world's most bloated toolkit on top of). I think that at this point even GNOME is not in a position to be a simple back-end to a Win32 port (i.e. there is not a 1-1 mapping from all Win32 features to GNOME, yet), so there's going to be a lot of glue code no matter what. I'd hate to see Win32 apps released for Linux, and be 10 times slower out of the gate.
This will be fun to watch, but I doubt it will pan out as anything serious just yet.
I have wanted to be able to use Internet Explorer for Linux for a long time. I don't like many Microsoft products but IE is one thing microsoft did right.... It crashes less on me than any other browser I have used. So until Mozilla gets to a stable point, I may start using IE!
On the other hand I think we need to keep an eye on this type of stuff. If alot of windows programs start flowing into *nix it could cause interest in open source to taper off. Alot of people get into developing open source products because they want to do something in their OS of choice and find out that there arn't any programs out there that do what they want... If there are alot more closed source programs out there coming over from windows, not only will there be less "why doesn't my OS have one of those" projects and more people learning the windows api and going closed source because its common with that api.
I know some people are going to flame me for suggesting using Microsoft products but grow up. If a company has a good product I am going to use it. If you have a valid counter or something to add to my statements please add them but if all you are interested in letting people know is how much you hate Microsoft, please don't waste everybodys time
The whole point is to make NT apps run under *nix. Since the old school unix platforms are being drowned by the linux wave, MS is latching on to linux as an interoperability platform to stamp out. It's a clever tactic - basically, their goal in buying mainsoft was to position and elbow in NT. This is part of the elbowing process.
Nobody can accuse MS of being stupid. Their whole game plan in this area is to make NT indispensable.
This reminds me of an Andy Grove statement about how MS has its structure set up to act like antibodies reacting - they use email and feedback mechanisms to react rapidly and carry out their defense. It's very effective. Sure, people accuse them of being clueless, but they're the ones laughing. It's clever, and it works far more effectively than any other large software company.
BTW - Mary Jo Foley has been on a pro-linux anti-MS spree for months now. A lot of her articles are quite insightful too, though I suspect she's lost some of her MS insiders at this point. And she does read
L.
We won't see shareware/freeware ported, since the cost of this package will almost definitely be quite prohibitive...shareware from big names like Id Software ... err.. well, Id's already doing native Unix stuff... okay, shareware like WinZip and the like might get ported... and I'm sure someone at WinAmp would take a swat at it... but by and large, such a thing will almost definitely be priced out of the range of shareware/freeware coders...
Also, bear in mind that the Linux scene has "advanced" only in the opinions of some. For those of us whose primary concerns are quality, tight code and the free software ethic, the Linux scene has horribly DEVOLVED, not evolved. For those who are focusing on increased availability of productivity/multimedia/game/etc. apps and device drivers, yes, these are definitely the best of times. It all depends on where your priorities lie...
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Typical bait and switch Microsoft tactics. A sane business simply should not rely on a cross-platform solution that is fundamentally dependent on one of the target platforms! (Microsoft NT source code in this case) Microsoft did this with Bristol as well: gave them NT source code access, Bristol developed a WIN32 API implementation for Unix and this indirectly baited Unix companies like AutoDesk to port their app to NT and still keep it running on Unix as well. A year or two later Microsoft suddenly increased the licensing cost of the NT source code five-fold. Five-fold *per client license* price increase. What did this mean? NT-only versions of the software remained cheap, the Unix port suddenly got very expensive. Bristol actually went ahead and sued Microsoft (and lost the case badly), and AutoDesk was stranded in the NT space. Btw., the market share of AutoDesk's AutoCAD has dropped significantly since then, so this should be a warning to other businesses. ;) Maybe ask MainSoft wether Microsoft guarantees (contractually) that MainSoft will get easy, fair-price, volume-independent and early access to NT source code (and source code in development) in the future.
Now how is MainSoft different? Sure it will work for a year or two, until President Bush orders his antitrust chief to settle with Microsoft (under ridiculous conditions). Microsoft will be the true 1100-pound gorilla again it used to be, and MainSoft will be yet another Bristol. Keep in mind that Microsoft can increase the price of the NT source code license unilaterally at any time, to almost any value. It's theirs after all, so if you depend on it thats your problem.
What should we Linuxers do? Just ignore them and write cool Linux-API (Unix) apps, Micro/MainSoft are losers
--Coke
I am becoming resigned to the fact that the operating system, for all intents and purposes, is meaningless. I use a limited number of programs on a day to day basis; the three that I use the most are:
- AutoCAD 14
- form*Z 3.1
- Photoshop 5.5
(I am an architecture geek, if this wasn't obvious.) I have found that (at least in the case of Photoshop and form*Z) it matters next-to-none what OS I am on -- both run equally well and without any major differences on either platform. I'm stuck using a Windows machine for AutoCAD: Autodesk (its makers) decided after Release 12 (?) that it was no longer financially worthwhile to support two versions for platforms that made up less than 10% of the marketplace combined (namely, Mac and Unix). But I guess I'm okay with that, because it has allowed some nice CAD programs to flourish, at least on the Mac platform.
So, the point: I hate Windows; I specifically hate all the little crap that it does, its bugs, its "helpful features" that are anything but. However, due to my field of study and the choice of programs available, I'm rather stuck on a Windows machine. How I long to use Linux, Be, or *anything* other than Windows! Alas, I cannot. I was literally a few hours away from installing linux when I found that WINE cannot even run *older* versions of AutoCAD and form*Z and Photoshop, let alone execute the latest versions.
(I realize, and have heard arguments to the like before, that there are "similar" programs available on the linux platform. But is that really the solution you want to promote? "Don't like your OS? Switch and relearn all of the programs you use!" Harumph. For example: I've seen Gimp, I've dabbled with Gimp, I still vastly prefer the look, feel, and features of Photoshop. Sorry.)
I welcome anyone who wants to create the ability to escape the curse of Windows, even if it is MS itself at the heart of it. Remember what I said at the beginning: the OS is irrelevant. There are Holy Wars being faught over Mac vs. Win vs. Linux vs. Be vs. BSD vs. etc. Why? To me, operating systems are the roads of the world; programs are the cars. No one fusses about the roads they drive on (well, almost no one), but few people miss an opportunity to fuss about their car.
Okay, a fuzzy analogy, I apologize. (A wee bit tired right now...) Now, I'm an architecture geek, remember, not a computer geek; but try this: How much of what you do with your computer, productivity-wise, actually has anything directly to do with the operating system? I've examined my habits, and the answer is almost none. With few exceptions, almost everything I do on a computer involves programs that run on the OS, even telnet and plaintext editing. It seems to me that programs are where the money really is, not the OS.
Now, I am *NOT* advocating a "one world, one OS" system; rather, I'm envisioning a world in which there are multiple vendors for your OS, all of which are essentially the same. Think of it as the gas you put in your car -- with some minor performance variations, the gas from Shell will get you where you're going just as good as the gas from Mobil. What gas you put in your car doesn't matter nearly as much as where you are going.
Okay, to summarize: OS, irrelevant; programs, reason for having a computer; anything that blurs the distinction between one OS and the next (or makes the OS distinction a distant second to program usability), good news indeed.
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
Mainwin allows windows code to be compiled on linux into native executables. Wine does this too but also allows the loading of native Win binaries to be loaded and executed using the wine win32api implementation.
Will the Mainwin people implement directX and write a direct3d to glx translation layer like the Wine crew are doing? Personally I doubt it. Wine also allows the loading of _native_ linux libs from a win32 program. I can fire up halflife and wine will load the _linux_ glide lib and give me full 3d acceleration.
Last but certainly not least... Wine IS open source. You want to hack in something that makes the widgets look like GTK ones? fine! try doing that with Mainwin.
Same goes for MainWin. If they don't provide a stable system that can run just about any Windows app then they will not succeed. OpenSource won't even come into play with this - these guys are MS partners: They can produce code that's more compatible, because they probably have licenses to use the original source from MS. Don't kid yourself, they've got the upper hand. And as for customization, well I'd like my programs to work first, before I start worrying about theming, okay?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."