Hello, everybody!
I usually do not write letters of this kind, so please do not discard it
as "opinon" which is not backed by code. I write this out of respect
for your work, and believe me, I have better uses for my time.
I have read your preliminary statement regarding
the release of Motif source code, and ask you to reconsider.
I totally agree with you that TOG's release is not completely "open" in
the GNU sense of the word. But you must understand, that companies
work in a different way from a group of individuals, and that maybe
their license was the best they could do. So please do not use
the all-or-nothing approach which has lead to so many schisms and
duplication of work in the open source field.
And look from a practical point of view - every existing Unix system
already has Motif as part of normal development system, and any
free operating system can now have it for free. And this is all what is
needed by most of Motif's users.
As one of the posters in a newsgroup said - consider it your victory.
I am a programmer myself, and I know how hard it is when your code
becomes obsolete (for whatever reason). But we also need to accept
reality - LessTif code, as it is, still needs a lot of work to become
a complete clone of Motif 1.2, even if we forget about UIL and mwm.
You are close, but counting the years and the speed of your progress -
I would say one year. And it would take several more years to have
a Motif 2.1 clone.
It would be really sad to see dissolving of a group of so many people
with profound Motif knowledge. So please take it as a warp-speed
time machine, which has brought you 3-4 years in the future, where
you have finished a Motif 2.1 clone, and you can continue your work
from there. Motif desperately needs new development, more widgets
and improvement of existing ones. As the Microsoft analyst lucidly
(and cruelly) noted in the Halloween memo - Linux community is
chasing headlights, re-implementing existing standards. Now it is
time to take the lead, define new standards. Please consider if you
can work with ICS or whoever will now operationally take care of
Motif on part of the Open Group. It looks like the XFree86 people
found a way to coexist with TOG and take the development of X Window
a few steps further (3D support, etc.). Try to do something similar.
Thank you for all your work so far, and congratulations on a big
victory.
Dusan Peterc
Arahne, d.o.o.
P.S.
My company works on a commercial non-open sourced product, and
we were just about to open source part of our programs with the sole
purpose of providing you with a source code to iron out the differences
between the Motif 1.2 and your implementation. We will still do it,
even if now there is not much point to it.
