On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 11:14 +0800, Warren Jones wrote: > If the Mac will be able to run win software well, will this be a > double-edged sword? > - will that encourage companies to only write software for Win, knowing > it will probably work on the new macs good enough?
It sounds like current options for running win32 on the new macs might be: (a) dual boot (install and run windows as well as MacOS/X) - best, but most intrusive; can't use both Mac and Windows apps at once. Requires Windows license. (b) Windows in a virtualized environment - fairly good, but slow for some things such as video, may not support Direct3D/OpenGL, etc. Requires Windows license. (c) API translators such as WINE. Least reliable, will only run some Windows apps without specific effort by WINE or the app developers to be compatible. No windows license required. I don't know about you, but none of those sound too fantasic. Given how much Mac users whine about X11 applications*, I wouldn't be worrying too much about win32 becoming dominant on MacOS. * Apple did a really half-hearted job of their X11 integration. As a developer of an X11 application this annoys me immensely - I've seen nothing to indicate it'd be that hard for them to provide access to the dock, Mac virtual filesystem, etc. They don't even ship the X server by default :-( -- Craig Ringer
