I think this about refutes all the nonsense I've heard so far. I don't intend to spend any more time on this thread.
The false factual statements that were made are that OpenMotif is not enhanced and does not support Section 508 accessibility. In fact, OpenMotif is supported by two companies, and non-free licenses are available from The Open Group. On Section 508 accessibility: "[Motif] requires no modified toolkits, no re-engineering and no recompilation." I can't speak for those three companies, but their lawyers might have some concerns about Sun going around telling people there is no support for Motif and that Motif doesn't support 508 accessibility requirements. Inline. On Wed, 24 Jun 2009, Garrett D'Amore wrote: > Dean Anderson wrote: > > On Tue, 23 Jun 2009, Garrett D'Amore wrote: > > > > > >> None of the arguments matter. On *Solaris* at least, motif is > >> effectively legacy, because *nobody* is maintaining it or writing new > >> applications on it. > >> > > > > Except that your claim above isn't true, unless you mean to limit it to > > Sun or OpenSolaris. There are at least TWO commercial companies > > providing support for Motif, and some more that provide binaries for > > sale. That's more than there are for BIND. > > > > Did you read the statement? I *said* *Solaris*. Doesn't that imply Sun > and OpenSolaris? Its certainly true *here*, in the OpenSolaris community. Quite a lot of third party software runs "On Solaris". But as long as you make the distinction between what's your opinion and what's fact, I'm happy. > BIND doesn't need companies to sell binaries separately. Really? It just happens by magic? In fact, Sun is/was one of the companies that sells BIND in its Solaris product, and has for many, many years. > The [BIND] source is freely available and redistributable. So is OpenMotif---Under almost the same license as BIND. > And I know that more companies than that provide binaries with the > operating systems. (Pretty much all UNIX vendors provide BIND > binaries! Many, but not all of them, also provide Motif binaries.) > You're comparing apples and oranges. We're comparing source licenses and support models. Berkeley/BIND/ISC and OSF/OpenMotif/ICS&IST are virtually identical in their source licence and support models. > Put another way, I can't think of any companies selling FreeBSD > binaries. People used to sell BSD binaries (related to FreeBSD). Perhaps you've never heard of BSDI. > But I think it would be a grave mistake to assert that this > says something about the vitality of the community behind it. And yet, > SCO (if they are even still around) was selling binaries (they might > even still be, if they can drum up any customers), yet their market > share was infinitesimal and their development community was practically > non-existent. So, I conclude that having binaries for sale is a useless > metric here. The point is that there is a vibrant market for Motif, just like there is a market for BIND and *BSD, even though Berkeley isn't updating the source code. > Fair enough. I think most of the claims have been factual. Certainly, > my original statement, that Motif is legacy code and new application > developers shouldn't be writing code for it is most definitely true, at > least in the context where it was worded, which is here in the > OpenSolaris community. Your original wording included more than the OpenSolaris community. But how many Motif applications were there in Solaris? Outside of CDE, which is a separate desktop manager that just uses Motif, I can't think of any at all in Solaris. So, Motif development is kind of moot for Solaris; *Solaris* doesn't do Motif or GTK+ development, so its sort of a snide, malicious comment. > Whether it is or is not true in other contexts is not something I can > accurately judge, although I know *I* wouldn't be wasting my time on > CDE or Motif development these days. Some people think they shouldn't be wasting their time on Solaris, too. But a lot disagree. Let's just not pretend or assert that there aren't lots of people who use and support Motif, OK? On Tue, 23 Jun 2009, Shawn Walker wrote: > >> > >> http://www.ist.co.uk/mas/s508.html > > > > That document shows that Motif /IS/ compliant. It refutes your > > claim. > > > > Yes, but compliant with *lots of limitations* and as I noted before, > this solution is a commercial one. There are no limitations in the document. I can't tell whether you are unable to comprehend you read or are intentionally trying to spread FUD; but you seem ignorant of Xserver architecture, so its seems likely that you just don't know what you are talking about. Clarity: That IST 508 compliance document has the text of Section 508 in bold, and explains how Motif applications are developed in compliance with each section of 508. GTK+ application developers have to do the same somehow---tooltips, focus management, large icons and things don't write themselves. Motif definitely complies with 508 WITHOUT MODIFICATION TO MOTIF as the Overview explicitly states: IST's Motif Accessibility Solution is non-invasive. It requires no modified toolkits, no re-engineering and no recompilation. Add tooltips, configure colors, fonts and navigation preferences. Enlarge images and cursors. Run the Motif Accessibility Module with your application to make it fully accessible. It really is that simple. Makes all information about your application's widgets programmatically accessible, as required by Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act To emphasize again: ========================================================================= It requires no modified toolkits, no re-engineering and no recompilation. ========================================================================= It doesn't get any more plain than that; Motif is fully 508 compliant. > >> I assert that the 'official' release of OpenMotif is effectively > >> dead or abandoned by its original publisher. > > > > Your assertion appears to be baseless because there is nothing wrong > > with the support model, nor is that model unique. On your basis, one > > could ridiculously assert that BIND, BSD etc is effectively > > abandoned by > > Berkeley and are therefore 'dead'. That's just nonsense. > > I'm fairly certain all of those products have been updated since 2000 > 8) So has Motif. Your claims otherwise are factual and false, and no doubt the lawyers for ICS and IST would have some objection. > I will let the numbers of users of Gtk, Qt, etc. products speak for > themselves. They paint the facts in hard, cold numbers. Sure. Except that you have no numbers. I've tried to avoid engaging in the mud of a Motif vs Gtk or Qt, since all I care about is the false statements and FUD about Motif. I don't really care what toolkit you use, since it doesn't much matter. But I suggest people look at this article. http://theunixgeek.blogspot.com/2007/10/gtk-vs-qt.html I'll quote just a little from the article: "When it comes to developing GUI applications on Linux, people either will program in GTK or QT. GTK has no formal support and you can develop any time of application with it for free. QT, on the other hand, has an "open source" version, in which you must agree to make all programs you write with QT open-source. If you want to write commercial applications, you have to shell out some cash (of course, Trolltech provides commercial support)." To me, it seems kind of hypocritical to advocate Qt and complain about Motif's OpenMotif licence. But hey, everyone has their opinion. -- Av8 Internet Prepared to pay a premium for better service? www.av8.net faster, more reliable, better service 617 344 9000 _______________________________________________ opensolaris-code mailing list opensolaris-code@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/opensolaris-code
