Improving copyright
João Miguel Neves
joao at silvaneves.org
Fri May 14 18:22:08 UTC 2004
A Sex, 2004-05-14 às 11:48, Niall Douglas escreveu:
> On 13 May 2004 at 22:48, João Miguel Neves wrote:
>
> > > > And what's the advantage of using an operation system over another
> > > > that is just a look-alike? --
> > >
> > > If this were true, why use Linux when FreeBSD looks almost identical
> > > and can run Linux binaries?
> > >
> > Because GNU/Linux is my first of the two and there's no compelling
> > reason for me to change to FreeBSD (the 1000% factor usually used in
> > marketing).
>
> Which is precisely the same logic why people continue to use Windows.
> Unless there's an obvious and compelling reason to change, the
> incumbant has a major advantage.
>
Fortunately those reasons are appearing and growing (viruses and license
restrictions).
> > > A free software clone of Windows would be immensely useful. For one
> > > thing it brings all the driver & application support Windows gets.
> > > It's also open source with all the advantages that brings like
> > > ability to modify, enhance & study. It would likely cost no money
> > > though that's not so important.
> > >
> > Why isn't wine enough?
>
> 1. No binary compatibility with Windows drivers. This is very
> important to most people
There are some developments like the ndis wrapper driver (which I think
is a bad idea, but we obviously have very different views on how quick
users can drop a platform).
> 2. Few Windows games will run under WINE. And this is unlikely to
> change as DirectX demands a certain driver architecture Linux isn't
> moving towards.
You do now that there is a DirectX implementation of Wine and that the
latest work in X.org is improving in taking advantage of the hardware.
> 3. No matter how wonderful WINE becomes, running Windows applications
> under it will always be a bit of a black art. Most people just want
> to shove in the CD and make it go. This is why Linux is unsuited to
> replace Windows in non-server arenas
>
I don't get why this is impossible? Binfmt and things like nautilus
together with wine can do that behaviour without any problems. I don't
understand why you say it isn't possible.
> > And why do you think reactos will go further
> > than wine on implementing win32?
>
> Actually ReactOS incorporates WINE, they simply provide a "native"
> implementation layer - instead of calling Linux functions, they call
> reimplementations of the NT kernel API.
So they'll also have to help develop DirectX for Wine to that. Nice to
know...
--
João Miguel Neves
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