------- Forwarded message ------- From: peter@piments.com To: "Dan Kegel" dank@kegel.com, wine-devel wine-devel@winehq.org Subject: Re: Building bridges by helping small ISVs Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 20:53:17 +0100
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 19:35:07 +0100, Dan Kegel dank@kegel.com wrote:
It's frustrating that large software vendors (Adobe, Intuit, Macromedia, IBM) aren't paying much attention to Wine, even though Wine's the quickest way for them to reach the Linux desktop market. I've been trying to figure out why they're holding back. After talking with a few large vendors and the folks working on the Munich migration project, I got the distinct feeling that Wine simply doesn't have a good reputation yet. To cut through this negative fog, we need more evidence that software vendors can succeed in the Linux market using Wine. So, how do we get that, if the large vendors won't budge?
One way would be to focus on the other end of the spectrum: one-person software companies. There are so many of these that Wine already supports some of them reasonably well. I'd like to see the Wine community cultivate relationships with these folks, and coax a few of them to support and promote their apps on Linux using Wine. This will mean a lot of hand-holding on our part, helping them test their apps and file and fix Wine bugs they expose.
What's in it for us? Lots of things: a) the micro-ISVs we help will be a great source of bug reports and QA b) some of them will turn into evangelists c) their success will attract the larger ISVs that we're having trouble with (e.g. Intuit, Macromedia, Adobe) who *will* be able to contribute bugfixes (by hiring contractors) d) they will increase the pool of apps available for desktop linux
So, what am I doing about this? Well, I'm walking through the lists of successful micro-isvs, trying out their apps, filing bugs and helping resolve them, adding AppDB entries, exchanging emails with micro-isvs that have expressed an interest in working with Wine, and updating my Wine for Windows ISVs page, http://kegel.com/wine/isv
Like everything else associated with Wine, there's enough here to keep dozens of people like me busy. I hope I can inspire more folks to follow my example. If you're interested, please jump in! And do consider taking part in my little isv mailing list experiment, http://groups.google.com/group/wine-isv ; I'm going to try to use it as the place where I give ISVs special hand-holding.
- Dan
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Good initiative,
one suggestion: avoid terms like hand-holding, it's derogatory, try guidance. It may create a negative impact if one of the holdees gets invovled in this list and gets the impression you're being condecending. Could undo the good will you're trying to create.
I am not at all surprised that major companies dont want to touch Wine with a long stick. It is only just out of alpha and the regression/breakage pattern does not seem to be a lot more stable than it was in alpha.
Imagine a small amateur car workshop has come up with an impressive , revolutionary new engine that works... most of the time, but the prototype engines they produce sometimes just dont work. Would you expect UPS to be interested?
Having said that , I think you idea is a good way forwards. Small companies like that have a very fast dev. cycle . I have a fairly complex windows app that worked well except for some fancy frame borders , I just turned them off by default. A big co. may take 6 months to process the idea before doing 30 mins work to make a change to the code.
It would be good to fill out the app DB a bit.
seesnz greetz.