[aclug-L] Re: Mainsoft

[Tom Hull <thull@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is just the latest chapter in an old scam. Microsoft wants everybody
to write to their APIs, basically because they don't work on any other OS,
so once you do, you're stuck with Microsoft. Some software companies see
this and want an out -- a way to port their Microsoft-specific code to
other platforms, at some future point when the need arises. Mainsoft helps
Microsoft answer that objection: for now just write to Microsoft APIs, and
when/if you ever need to port to Unix, just use Mainsoft.

A few years ago, the same question was answered was Bristol Technology,
but Microsoft screwed Bristol, and wound up having to defend itself in
an antitrust case (which, btw, Microsoft won). Of course, the customers
who actually did use Bristol were similarly screwed. The chances that
Mainsoft's customers will get similar treatment are rather high.

The product is just a bunch of libraries. You recompile your source code
and link it with the libraries, which map the Windows API calls into
more/less similar Unix calls. This is a much simpler problem than the
one which WINE handles, which is to run unchanged Windows .exe files.
This has no effect on WINE, even if it were to be used extensively,
which is very unlikely.

"James G." wrote:
> 
> What do people here think of :
> 
> www.mainsoft.com
> 
> ??????????????
> 
> It's a company with a software product (endorsed by microsoft) that will
> convert Windows source code over to Unix binaries. Microsoft gave them
> the source code to a number of Microsoft programs. This sounds weird.
> What will happen to WINE and Corel? Is M$ warming up to Linux?
> 
> James G.

-- 
/*
 * Tom Hull -- mailto:thull@xxxxxxxxxxx or thull@xxxxxxxxxx
 *             http://www.ocston.org/~thull/
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