Outreach to windows ISVs

[Dan Kegel]

At the Desktop Architects Meeting at OSDL, one of the
big topics was how to make life easier for ISVs that want
to start supporting Linux.  So I put together a little page
aimed at Windows ISVs who are interested in supporting
the Linux market using Wine, but aren't quite sure how to go about it.
The page is at
   http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
Comments, anyone?

Thanks,
Dan

--
Why won't Johnny run Linux?  See http://kegel.com/linux/comfort

[Andreas Mohr]

Hi,

On Sun, Dec 11, 2005 at 10:33:00PM -0800, Dan Kegel wrote:
> At the Desktop Architects Meeting at OSDL, one of the
> big topics was how to make life easier for ISVs that want
> to start supporting Linux.  So I put together a little page
> aimed at Windows ISVs who are interested in supporting
> the Linux market using Wine, but aren't quite sure how to go about it.
> The page is at
>    http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
> Comments, anyone?

Big Fat Mistake: nothing relevant mentioned on that page. IOW, nobody will
find it, and that's a problem since a vendor *needs* to search for such
information since he certainly will not know your URL by heart ;)

Some important missing keywords/topics: "porting", "MFC", "Visual Basic",
"Unix", "win32", "api", "toolkit".
Those omissions alone would account for a > 50% internet search failure rate,
I'm sure ;)

BTW, big thanks for all your Linux Desktop-centric efforts!

Andreas Mohr

[Dan Kegel]

On 12/12/05, Andreas Mohr  wrote:
> > http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
>
> Some important missing keywords/topics: "porting", "MFC", "Visual Basic",
> "Unix", "win32", "api", "toolkit".
> Those omissions alone would account for a > 50% internet search failure rate,
> I'm sure ;)

OK, check it now!
> BTW, big thanks for all your Linux Desktop-centric efforts!

You're welcome.  All I ask in return is the occasional beer and pizza fix :-)
- Dan

--
Why won't Johnny run Linux?  See http://kegel.com/linux/comfort

[Andreas Mohr]

Hi,

On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 02:55:26AM -0800, Dan Kegel wrote:
> On 12/12/05, Andreas Mohr  wrote:
> > > http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
> >
> > Some important missing keywords/topics: "porting", "MFC", "Visual Basic",
> > "Unix", "win32", "api", "toolkit".
> > Those omissions alone would account for a > 50% internet search failure rate,
> > I'm sure ;)
>
> OK, check it now!

Muuuch better, thanks!

And perhaps also mention wxwidgets.org (high MFC similarity) and Qt (good MFC
porting support, AFAIK) somewhere on the sidelines (it's sorta off-topic),
for the yet undecided.

Andreas Mohr

[Aric Cyr]

Dan Kegel <dank <at> kegel.com> writes:
> On 12/12/05, Andreas Mohr <andi <at> rhlx01.fht-esslingen.de> wrote:
> > > http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
> >
> > Some important missing keywords/topics: "porting", "MFC", "Visual Basic",
> > "Unix", "win32", "api", "toolkit".
> > Those omissions alone would account for a > 50% internet search failure rate,
> > I'm sure ;)
>
> OK, check it now!

This sort of thing seems ideal for the Wine wiki.  At least a link to your page
would definitely be in order.  Just a thought.

Regards,
  Aric

[Dan Kegel]

aric wrote:
> > > http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
>
> This sort of thing seems ideal for the Wine wiki.  At least a link to your page
> would definitely be in order.  Just a thought.

Don't get me started about wikis.

If you like the page, link to it.

Thanks,
Dan

--
Wine for Windows ISVs: http://kegel.com/wine/isv

[Francois Gouget]

Hi,

Dan Kegel wrote:
[...]
> The page is at
>    http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
> Comments, anyone?

From this page:
> Wine is fully commercially supported. You or your customers can
> purchase yearly per-seat support contracts from Codeweavers or
> other companies if you need it.

While that's quite correct and just what a company who is trying to 
deploy Linux on its desktop needs, I think an ISV would be more 
interested in CodeWeavers' porting services, as described on this page:

http://www.codeweavers.com/services/engagements/wine_port/
> Because Wine is still in beta, it is likely that it will have some
> issues running your application at first.

I would say that this will be true even after Wine is no longer in beta. 
I'd liken it to taking an application that was developped in 1995 when 
Windows 95 just came out, and trying to run it on Windows XP SP2. It's 
just and environment the application was never tested in and that may 
reveal bugs in the application, incorrect assumptions, or differences in 
the behavior of the two Windows versions. All these issues can exist 
with Wine just to an even greater degree. The good news there is that 
you as an ISV one gets to choose whether to modify the application to 
avoid trouble areas or whether to modify/fix Wine (though the latter is 
encouraged).

Regards,

[Dan Kegel]

On 12/14/05, Francois Gouget  wrote:
> > http://kegel.com/wine/isv/
> > Wine is fully commercially supported. You or your customers can
> > purchase yearly per-seat support contracts from Codeweavers or
> > other companies if you need it.
>
> While that's quite correct and just what a company who is trying to
> deploy Linux on its desktop needs, I think an ISV would be more
> interested in CodeWeavers' porting services

OK, adjusted.
> > Because Wine is still in beta, it is likely that it will have some
> > issues running your application at first.
>
> I would say that this will be true even after Wine is no longer in beta.

OK, adjusted.
> ... The good news there is that
> you as an ISV one gets to choose whether to modify the application to
> avoid trouble areas or whether to modify/fix Wine (though the latter is
> encouraged).

I'll figure out where to put that in sometime ;-)

Thanks for the comments,
Dan

--
Wine for Windows ISVs: http://kegel.com/wine/isv