I suppose that this is a silly question, but perhaps someone could kindly answer it.
MS Windows will not go away anytime soon, not because of any good features in MS Windows, but because MS has monopolized the end-user application market with proprietary format applications -- e.g., a MS Word DOC file does not properly import/translate into open systems applications on a realiable basis (e.g., StarOffice, Applixware, WordPerfect, etc.). Moreover, Mr. Gates in his infinite avarice will not allow his applications to be ported to other environments (e.g., X windows). Thus, one is forced to use MS Windows applications. These applications can run under three environments: MS Windows native (in control of the platform), MS Windows in a sandbox (Plex86, VMWare, SoftPC), or MS Windows ABI emulation (the Wine/Wabi approach). Given that Mr. Gates keeps enough of the real ABI secret, and changes it often enough, only the first two are viable, and I only like the second -- MS Win in a sandbox. At present, only Plex86 offered us the opportunity to do this without paying huge amounts of money to the Stanford folks from VMWare -- Plex86 behaved in a GPL fashion in the interest of the community, not in the interest of greed. With the dissolution of Plex86, what happens? Who will develop it? Is Sun wealthy enough to develop as they did StarOffice? If not, chalk another one up for Mr. Gates. (NO -- I do not have sufficient graduate students to develop it.) Yasha Karant > > I'm sitting here layed off, too. And the only time I donated money to > MandrakeSoft (so far), it was earmarked for Plex86. This is very sad. I was > hoping your employment with them would make a huge contribution toward > running Windows under Linux until Windows could be painlessly amputated from > my systems. > > On Monday 15 October 2001 08:34 am, you wrote: > > Well, my employment with MandrakeSoft is officially terminated, > > as a result of layoffs. > > > > I have no idea at this point what I'll be doing next, > > or where my future involvement in plex86 stands. > > > > I'm going to entertain many ideas ranging from work on plex86, > > to moving on to something completely different. > > > > If anybody has any serious thoughts, feel free to send them > > to me at my new email address: > > > > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Though please, if you want to send only sentiments, keep them. > > Pleasant thoughts are appreciated, but I need to keep email to > > a minimum of important messages. > > > > FWIW, I'm packing really light these days (moving to a foreign > > country does that to a person), so I can consider moving to many > > places (ones that are safe for Americans anyways). And honestly, > > if I go into working on a project in the commercial dimension, > > something fun would be nice, but I'm going to heavily consider > > money. > > > > Regards, > > -Kevin >
