From: John Steele (jsteele@netcom.com)
Date: 03/04/93


From: jsteele@netcom.com (John Steele)
Subject: Re: What would people think of binary-only software on Linux?
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 20:19:58 GMT

In <1mvqffINNksf@rave.larc.nasa.gov> jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov () writes:

[flame deleted :>]

>Mathematica to name a few. It would be *nice* if they were available
>via P.D. but until then many would be willing to settle for a
>shrink-wrapped version that works under Linux...If this were
>to occur, Linux *could* start pulling people away from the commercial
>version of UNIX, and therefore have a great impact on the pricing
>structure of the commercial UNIX distributions, to the benifit of
>*all* UNIX programmers...

>Another alternative is to move Linux toward binary compatibility with
>one of the commercial versions of UNIX, so that products available
>for that platform would work on Linux...

I would *love* to be able to run some of my *very expensive* Xenix software,
especially after removing Xenix to make space for Linux. This is one thing
that Coherent has going for it. Lets face it, there *is* a large amount
of commercial *nix software already out there on the shelves. I don't
intend to reinvent the wheel myself, even if I had the time (which I don't).

Reinventing just 'tastes' bad to some programmers...

>Think...

Well said (former IBM Almaden Research Center programmer :)

>John
>jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov

Nice name too,
  John

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