begin quoting Gus Wirth as of Mon, May 12, 2008 at 09:14:21PM -0700: > Andrew Lentvorski wrote: [snip] > >2) No cross platform. If it doesn't run on FreeBSD/Solaris/OS > >X/something non-Linux, it goes into the trashcan. This is stickier than > >even just "runs on multiple Linux". This is an indicator of how > >well-written the software is. If it is too difficult to port to > >FreeBSD, the software is written poorly. > > This seems to only apply to languages that are closely tied to the > platform like C/C++. I'm pretty sure that this isn't a problem with > Java, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc. Given your previous statements about > application development, I'm surprised you try to do anything with C/C++ > at all anymore.
I have run across Java programs that were not platform independent; it took some work, but the developers managed to pull it off. I like running Java programs in the sandbox (I'll give 'em limited disk access, system properties read-access, and network access, and nothing else), and seeing which ones fall over. A suprising number fail hard. > >3) Root to install. If software requires root for no good reason, it > >goes into the trash. > > Which is good. A product, in this case software, should stand on its > merits. If it doesn't meet your requirements, don't use it. It might > meet mine and I will use it. The marketplace will decide. The nice thing > about free software is that even with a small market the product can > survive. BTW, Open Office no longer requires administrator access to install on OS X. NeoOffice still does, however. Kudos to the Open Office team! -- Now to decide on how big of a check to write. Stewart Stremler -- KPLUG-List@kernel-panic.org http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
