On 2002.01.11 14:49 Roland wrote:
At 07:57 PM 1/11/02 +0100, Joerg Mayer wrote:
It looks like IBM spends its money on the products they themselvs use heavily, as well as training and making the name of Linux more popular (aka advertising/PR).
Hmm, I think 10 Million on WINE would do more advertising on the long run by attracting Windows Users and spreading the word, then the same amount spent on ads. If you really want to make Linux popular, running Windows software is the way, think about all the apps and games!!!
hahahhahahahahaahahahahahahaha
Sorry, ROTFLMAO, see below.
I may have missed it but I haven't seen IBM spend money on a Linux(related) project just to further the project. If they wanted to spend $10e7 just to improve programs/tools just for the "good" of it I would be sad to see this money spent on wine. I'd like to see it spent on the development/improvement of *native* Linux apps that fulfill the need of current Windows users.
Well, you have two options:
- Spend money on thousands of native Linux apps to capture the Windows
users. 2. Spend money on ONE native Linux app(WINE) to make it run thousands of Windows apps and attract the corresponding users.
I think option 2 is the more intelligent and cheaper option.
Read up on your computer history a bit son.
OS/2 ran Windows apps, and from about version 2 upwards ran all DOS and Windows stuff perfectly (except for the Win32s stuff). I am sure IBM does /not/ want to make the same mistake again.
However WinOS/2 actually was running Windows 3.x. In fact, the technology was extremely similar to SCO Merge (which now has offspring-- Win4Lin). One nice thing it could do that win4lin could not was actually put toplevel windows onto the desktop directly (though they still had the win31 look). This would look similar to running Wine in non-desktop and non-managed mode, although the windows actually were managed by OS/2.
Some people would argue that had IBM comitted to supporting Win32 stuff that OS/2 would still be around. Of course the bottom line is that the way they were doing this meant MS got the money for a copy of Windows every time someone bought OS/2. Not good. Wine wouldn't have that problem assuming it would be using all wine DLLs.
As for IBM investing in Wine. I suppose there are a couple things they could do. For one, they could somehow use the $10e6 you suggest but who would they pay it to. What might be more helpful is if some of the guys and gals that wrote OS/2 would help out with Wine. They would probably be extremely familiar with Win32 seeing as how OS/2 was originally a joint MS/IBM project which MS got out of when they hacked Win3.0 to support virtual memory on a 386 and decided to make NT. Now while the NT kernel was developed by former VMS guys and gals from DEC, some of Win32 resembles OS/2 because some of those developers went on to work on NT. Which by the way no-one has confirmed that MS ever said it actually stood for New Technology.. more likely it stands for Nice Tits, but that's another story.
Anyway, the bottom line is that IBM is not going to start throwing money at stuff. They made that mistake with OS/2 and look where that got 'em. No, IBM spends money when and where it helps their bottom line. Taking down MS does not help their bottom line. Building their own services does help their bottom line. IBM could care less if everyone could run Windows software on Linux. They are in the business of providing the totally integrated system. Running 3rd party stuff is usually not a top priority.
Note that IBM has already caught the eye of MS with IBMs ad campaign for moving onto 390 systems running Linux. Some of those internal MS memos recently released are really anti-IBM. Right now I think MS is at the point where they have competitors. They can go after companies using Linux just like they have gone after companies in the past. They are also going after various IT admins who use Linux for certain tasks suggesting that MS software is better for everything. Of course anybody that tells you that one system is better than all others is full of shit, but hey, it sounds good to some managers who don't want to listen to the people they have working for them. Let 'em waste their money on MS. When it breaks, let 'em waste more money on moving it back to what worked. MS is going to shoot itself in the foot soon enough, no need to bring out your own shotgun.
-Dave