Instead of relying on software developers to port their programs to a lot of different platforms, I would like to see an open Win32 "wrapper platform" for programs. Wine is a huge step along this line, but needs more polishing -- it is way to unstable as it is now although I am very impressed of what it does and I use it a lot.
There is probably no economic gain in porting e.g. Photoshop to Linux -- if you need this kind of professional software you can as well throw in an extra WinXP license.
Of course, this would not be limited to Linux, other operating systems could make use of it. ReactOS is an interesting project along this line and will hopefully help push this approach forward. And think of the possibilities if a company like Apple helped the Wine project with a fast x86 emulator and integrated Wine with their Mac OS X. Adding an efficient JIT and fast DirectX-wrappers customized for the operating systems, even newer games could run on an emulated machine. If not, at least recompiling the sources agains this unified API would take care of that. Maybe one day getting rid of Windows is something anyone can do, not just people with a degree in cs or corporations with a large staff of sysadmins.
If such a unified compatibility approach emerged, software developers would make sure that their programs ran on this "virtual platform". Much like in the "old days" web page developers only tested their websites with Internet Explorer, nowadays at least Firefox testing has become a second requirement.
Wine has come a long way, but has a long way to go before it can do all this. And just imagine the legal battle Microsoft would start when losing market shares to cheap custom-made OS:es running WinXP-native applications flawlessly.

TEXTPAD !!!!!

rpz: I wholeheartedly disagree. The reason we don't just have a wrapper execution environment for win32 is becuase that would bring all the security hole to linux along with it. While I appreciate the wine / cedega folks' hard work and I don't thin k you give them enough credit, I don't think that wine is a step in he right direction (yeah, you read that right) Microsoft's good products are it's application, but since it has been unwilling to port them, and since linux folk have already demonstrated they can one-up just about anybody, I would rather see move native apps written, better than windows and ported to windows, so that windows users can get used to 'linux apps' before they switch. Especially since the programs will run better under linux than they will on windows. MIcrosoft controls the market becuase they have good application support becuase they programs are wirtten fro windows. Think what wuold happen if most developers developed and beta'd on linux. Microsoft would have to start catering windows to linux API's for better compatibility. Insted we have to hack program compatibility and ultimately break the security of linux. I hopeover time, wine becomes less and less useful as people use monodevelop to develop cross platform apps, and gtk to build linux apps that can be quickly ported to windows. [/rant]

Re: What programs would you like to see ported to Linux?
 

Couldn't you just use netscape as your isp? Seeing as how netscape is owned by aol? Or you could use one of the many ISP's that don't have a proprietary dial-up protocol.

What you're saying is we should let it be hard to write computer software with wide customer base because it could be abused. If the situation was the opposite (i.e. Linux had a 99% marketshare), Microsoft could use the same argument for promoting their product. Linux is more secure in that it is configured by default to require a password for system-critical operations, but other than that it's the exact same thing.

I agree, of course. But again, Linux has too small a marketshare (at least in some markets suggested in this thread). This is the classical chicken and egg situation; software vendors like Adobe and Macromedia will not take Linux seriously until it gets a significant marketshare, and that will never happen until there is software for it. An emulation or compatibility layer could make the effort required significantly less, making the requirements for marketshare smaller.

Mono is good for some uses, just like Java, python etc works in some situations. .NET is slow though, and Mono is even slower (last time I tried it was about 1/6 of MS .NET runtime for a computationally intensive program. Adobe Premiere (or Photoshop for that matter) will simply never be written for the .NET framework, since there is always a need for speed. Computers can never get "fast enough". Also, last time I checked, mono did not implement enough GUI classes to make existing .NET programs work.
GTK is not ideal for a Windows program. It is good to have the port, but it sacrifices too much of the Windows GUI components to be useful in a product where the Windows version will be used in > 90% of the cases. wxWidgets is somewhat better, using the native widgets in Windows and OS X and GTK in Linux, but still it's a cost of porting existing programs and as with all API:s it has a learning curve for developers (which generates cost).

If we want to see it on Linux, it's got to be cheap.

I think you're off-base, uninformed and still wrong. The fact is, you very rarely win chess by spending the game n th edefense. WINE is a defensive application, it maintains their marketshare an ours; WINE allows us to maintain the satus quo. WINE also allows userspcae executionf of spyware, malware, etc. which makes linuc machine equally susecptable to become members in bot-nets. Do a search in google for linux viruses, and you won't find any, but you will find a couple of articles (including one in security focus) that addresses this specific issue. As far as mono is concerned, I can't defend mono as a ready-for-market app based simply on the things you describe, My point is that mono is a step in the right direction for linux; taking anoffense-oriented strategy for taking windows market share,

AS far as a win32 execution environment, what you're describing is called WINE. I realize that you have already addressed this, but what you fail to recognize is that win32 apps also rely apon the windows archetecture to function. Linux is a pure multi-user environtment, something that most windows apps do not support. What you're asking for here is that linux allow the same type of poor programming and security to be build into applications. It seems to me you don't realize the magnitued of what you're requesting, and what's more: I hope tha I never see this in the kernel tree. I don't think I will, but the idea that developers can build applications that run at a fraction of the speed on linux, becuase all the calls they make have to be translated to native calls is ridiculous. Since the archetecture that linux uses can be supported by windows, and can be ported that direction relatively easily, I'd rather see more IDE's wirrten for linux that allow easy cross-platform porting built-in. This will make linux the dominant development platform, and gradually the market will follow the developers there.

You're arguments look like the whine's of a wounded puppy, insecure and unwilling to say that linux is actually a better platform. If you thought it was, you'd realize that writting apps in GTK ought to be far easier than doing so in .NET or for any of the modern, truly supported windows api's. The fact is that computer science in taught on UNIX. This isn't becuase it's harder, it's becuase its standard. The people who are writting compercial and open source software are trained on unix and then, later they're retrained on windows. Re-tooling is not the high cost you seem to think it would be. What's more, software companies could benefit from lowered in-house TCO becuase they would no longer have to invest in VS.net, windows severs and workstations, or in any of the other MS products. Linux is designed from the ground up as a development platform, since linux is designed on the premise that people own computers and should be enabled to make them serve any purpose they see fit; a programming concept tha requires knowledge fo programming.

The fact is that microsoft couldn't use any arguement to say that linux apps, or a fully suppored linux API running on windows would hurt security. This is absolutely untrue. However since WINE is based on win98 framework, it has all of the smae sorts of vulnerabilities. Sure WINE apps can't cause a local DoS. They can however consume network bandwidth, alllow the instalation of spyware, and other similar types of problems. I realize I've been redundant here, but I think it's important to understand. WINE opens linux.

Feel free to argue this with me more privately via my email address mrgenixus@gmail.com

I switched to linux 15 months ago and there is only one windows app I have to have and that is MS Money, this is because that is the only program my bank supports. To get round this I have have file type conversion to a linux app. If the developers of Kmoney etc. just imported CSV files it would help.
I´d be really free.
To increase Linux market share the commercial linux guys have do a better job of marketing their products, that is the only way, most users do not know linux exists. I would think that a survey of linux users would show almost 100% are computer buffs and their families. This will change in countries where Linux is being used by institutions and companies for the desktop, but our(UK) government seems to been bought by BG.

CS:S linux client .... that own u all

What programs would you like to see ported to Linux?
 

Would boldly add this, Continually improving drivers / loadable-modules support for HW devices.

Examples:

- Wireless network adapters
Why else such a need for ndiswrapper (see Sourceforge's http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/ ) ???

- Winmodems
Why else a need for such sites as http://linmodems.org/ , http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/ , and http://walbran.org/sean/linux/linmodem-howto.html among others ???

- Printers
Why else such a need for LinuxPrinting.org's 'Suggested Printers for Free Software Users' at http://www.linuxprinting.org/suggested.html ???

- Scanners
Why else a need for SANE's 'Supported Devices' at http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html ???

- Other devices not mentioned above more extensively (e.g. display adapters in XFree86 ... etc.)

Also, based upon mrGenixus's Check out Puppy Linux at http://www.goosee.com/puppy/ (Couldn't resist this!) :D

nycace36

that's a terrrible misrepresentation of my point,... and it hilarious!

All good points, that need to be made by customers for vendors. Those lists are the best way to let them know they're losing market share becuase they refuse to be compatible. It's not like HW wvendors evn have to write the drivers, they just have to publish the hw's API

biggest problems are that many hw manuf. want to rovide feature-filled drivers instead of actual functionality.

turbo tax
 

I'd like to see turbo tax ported to Linux because I am a glutton for humor. I haven't paid "personal income tax" in 5 years and have been spitting in their deserving face about the why of it in the process. The tax system is based on pure fear and lies here in America, just as is the parent corp, of the US government known as the "federal reserve."

You elsewhere, I sympathize; you've long been under advanced controls. I promise not only will we retain a foothold of freedom here, but will turn the global environment and true freedom, such as few are allowed to understand, will light like a grass fire. There are millions of us here finally awakening (again) and evil will be expunged. Read "One way ticket to Crawford, Texas." Just do it, I double-dog-dare. (Available: www.rbnlive.com)

I do NOT apologize for the most reprehensible actions of "my government," because my point is precisely that it is indisputable fact the 'goobermint' in DC (the District of Criminals) is NOT my government. Get it?

Still, I just love the fear factor in turbo tax; making your "taxes" into something nebulously referred to as "easy" is a psychological warfare operation par excellence, anesthesia for the sweating/fever while you rob your very self in an 'accelerated' mere 27 hours. Most Orwellian to one who understands liberty, yet we have some rather advanced crowd control here in the states, too. And the sadism which possess that bunch of evil clowns (the US CONgress) who use such lawyerly tactics is impressive of itself. Yes, evil clowns, and that's being too kind, which itself is an understatement...

turbo tax; ever so officious and dead serious.

I have a very narrow-market sense of humor when it comes to "law, " because I now know the real deal. Still, for the old evolution see my archives at www.federaloberver.com

I only like this one: http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=7320

More and better later.

Cliff Jones
New York

I would like to see income tax software like 2nd Story Software's TaxAct or Intuit's Turbotax ported to Linux. They would have my business for life.

life itself!
 

ahh, yes! And what a life; save it and don't see what happens!

I have just one request...
 

Ultraedit.

What is ultraedit?