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From: kientzle@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Framemaker for FreeBSD?
Message-ID: <kientzleE8LFIE.Fv@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom
References: <5ic58v$n9q$1@news.eecs.umich.edu>
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:27:50 GMT
Lines: 27
Sender: kientzle@netcom18.netcom.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:39012
In article <5ic58v$n9q$1@news.eecs.umich.edu>,
Peter M. Chen <pmchen@life.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>I also wonder if Adobe would allow some outsider to port Framemaker for them
>with the appropriate non-disclosure agreement. Doing the porting work for
>the companies could be a potent method for getting more commercial
>applications up and running on the free Unixes. But I may just be
>naive about the difficulty and legal problems.
The problem is money; even if you do the port for free, the company still
has to pay for:
* SUPPORT (very expensive, they need to train their support
people on a new platform, set up and maintain bug
databases, etc.)
* maintenance (unless you plan to re-port for them every six months?)
* copying/advertising/product tracking/etc
It's just not worthwhile unless they can be reasonably certain of
a minimum amount of sales. In the case of Frame, the cost of porting
to other Unix/X11 environments is probably already quite low, so
that's not the obstacle anyway.
Nice idea, but it just doesn't work in practice. Your best bet is
just to call them and ask, so they know there's demand. If they get
enough such calls, maybe they'll be able to justify the investment.
- Tim