Hi all,
(I realize that this is a technical mail list and not and advocacy one, so
I am more than willing to take this offline with any interested parties.)
I am a little disturbed over the competition that some on this list
believes exists between LessTif and OpenMotif. I believe that the
"competition" (due to a lot of ***hard work*** by members on this list) is
not between essentially two implementations of the same standard. The real
"competition" is between the Motif API and those APIs advocated by others.
True that ^&*^*!@ license that TOG released Open Motif under makes it
difficult to merge and cross fertilize the two implementations. But with
the high degree of compatibility shown by Rick's running of the LessTif
compatibility tests (I hope that the LessTif team doesn't feel the need to
be bug-for-bug compatible with OpenMotif ;-) ), many developers should see
them as alternatives with slightly different features:
LessTif: LGL + Motif 1.2.x + active open source community
OpenMotif: Restricted license + Motif 2.1 + commercial user base + more
extensive internationalization (???not sure on this one, so please correct
me if I have the wrong impression here)
I see them that way and that is why I try to make sure that every new
release of LessTif is announced on the MotifZone too. Now that it looks
like the LessTif team has largely succeeded in its goals to implement a
"Free" Motif, maybe its time to figure out how to get Motif growing again?
That is what we are doing in the Themes area in Open Motif. And when we put
it out on the CVS tree next week, there will be external pieces to Motif
that are not covered by the OpenMotif license (we wrote them!) and perhaps
they can be adopted and/or improved for LessTif. Perhaps there might be
away to reverse the situation in the future and LessTif advances get merged
into OpenMotif (dual licenses?).
Just my thoughts,
Regards
Mark
-
Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc.
Visual Development Tools for Professionals
617-621-0060 x108 (voice)
617-621-9555 (fax)
201 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139
