[Desktop_architects] Re: Portland: How to fix this situation

[Otto Wyss]

Bryce Harrington wrote:

>On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 11:00:32PM +0100, Otto Wyss wrote:
>  
>
>>I think so too but there will be always some Windows-Only applications 
>>which Wine is the only solutions. IMO this will always be the case in 
>>the professional environment, so Wine should concentrate there. There's 
>>    
>>
>I'm sure this is going to sound cheeky, but in my opinion the perfect
>role for Wine in enabling the Linux Desktop is games.
>  
>
I know but don't over estimate games, games will be the first Windows
application which will be ported to Linux, simply because also Linux
users will pay the 30-50$ a game costs. As soon as Linux reaches a
market share of about 10% games will start appearing. But at business we
have about 130 third party Windows-Only products, the city Mannheim has
about 150 and at Munich I estimate close to 200. At least 10% of these
don't run on a terminal server and there's almost no likelihood they
will (or can) be ported to Linux. I know at least one application which
falls in this category and is an absolute killer for Linux in our case
unless there's another solution.

And that's where I see Wine can shine. So one important task for OSDL is
to find a first class reference project where Wine/Linux can prove to
the commercial users/managers that it's able to run any of these third
party applications. IMO the city Munich would be a good choice.

>I suspect Wine developers would prefer to focus on more high brow (and
>higher income) things like photoshop, quicken, and the like, and
>certainly there is a lot of sense to that.  But it's within the realm of
>feasibility that either open source alternatives could be developed, or
>through efforts such as the Portland Project, those ISVs may be able to
>port them to Linux.  Games are another story.
>
>  
>
I know developers prefer to do all sort of things (I'm myself one of
these ;-) ) but it's the OSDL's task to concentrate on the important
issues and see that they are taken care of somehow.

>>PS. is it possible to just be subscribed to this group? The OSDL 
>>membership is rather difficult to get and answering through the web 
>>isn't much better.
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, this list is open, you should be able to subscribe to it just like
>any mailing list; if not, email John Cherry for assistance.
>
>  
>
Could someone tell me where I can subscribe or forward this to John Cherry?

O. Wyss

-- 
Application guidelines: http://freshmeat.net/projects/wyoguide/
Cross-platform Editor: http://freshmeat.net/projects/wyoeditor/
Cross-platform Filemanager http://freshmeat.net/projects/wyofiler/