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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!world!mv!news.missouri.edu!vortex.cc.missouri.edu!rhys From: rhys@vortex.cc.missouri.edu (Justin "Rhys Thuryn" McNutt) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Followup-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Date: 22 Apr 1996 15:30:50 GMT Organization: University of Missouri - Columbia Lines: 61 Message-ID: <4lg8na$isk@news.missouri.edu> References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <4l1d4i$12qu@news.missouri.edu> <NELSON.96Apr17100753@ns.crynwr.com> <4l6pbd$pgc@sidhe.memra.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: vortex.cc.missouri.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22076 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:786 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3439 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3292 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17962 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46759 Michael Dillon (michael@memra.com) wrote: : In article <NELSON.96Apr17100753@ns.crynwr.com>, : Russell Nelson <nelson@ns.crynwr.com> wrote: : >Exactly. I was bashing Win95 to a friend who is a music teacher, and : >who bought a Win95 box. She said, in a somewhat frustrated tone of : >voice, "Well what alternative do we have??" as if there WAS none. : Macintosh is the alternative. If people just want an easy to use box : to do WP, spreadsheet and play a few games then nothing is better than : a Mac. Of course, you can run a lot of that Mac software (including : Claris Works) on a Linux box with Executor from http://www.ardi.com : IMHO, the Linux/Executor combo is far more likely to bear fruit in the : near future than Linux/WINE. Executor already supports a wide range of : Macintosh applications and if more people would use it, the company would : have the support needed to get full System 7 compatibility finished. Wow! Whiplash here! Make Linux take on the *MacOS* instead of *Windows*. Hmmm... interesting... :) So what are the odds that a) System 7 support can be made string enough that I can run MS Word 6.0 and Excel 5.0 for the Macintosh on my Linux box and b) that this powerful Executor can be packaged free with Linux distributions? While a) is going to be difficult enough, I think b) is impossible. Executor is ShareWare at the moment. Are they just going to up and *give* it to us? : Anyone know if Caldera has talked to ARDI about integrating their product : with CND? Has anyone thought of integrating Executor with netatalk? : Since the Macintosh platform has far better quality applications than Windows : I think this is a far better direction to be heading. Then use Executor to control AppleShare exports and printing. Not bad... : >THAT is why we must win the desktop. I don't mind if Microsoft wins : >because people have evaluated Win95 against Linux and make a conscious : >choice to use it. But I want them to know that they have a choice, : >and to make it. : In order to have a choice that runs Windows apps we must contend with a : horrendously hacked together patchwork system full of undocumented : wierdness. This is not an easy thing to do and is probably why WINE : is so far from usability and why WABI is only compatible with a few of : the more popular applications. Even OS/2's support for Windows isn't : perfect and the WinOS2 developpers had access to the complete Windows : source code! Yes. Unfortunately, the problem isn't just the Windows code, but the application code. Lots of applications for Windows pull all kind of weird tricks while they're running, and thus throw emulators for a loop. -------- If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. Got a Linux problem? Or can you help others solve them? Visit the Linux Common Problems page at http://vortex.cc.missouri.edu/~rhys/linux.html rhys@vortex.cc.missouri.edu