Re: XyWrite udner Linux [was:Partitioned drives, Win98 & other OSes]

[Wendell Cochran atrypa@xxxxxxxx]

Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 16:08:56 -0800
From: "J. R. Fox" 

Patricia M Godfrey wrote:
>> And I'm still telling every Linux gearhead I meet that there's this
wonderful DOS word processor whose port to Linux would be a marriage
made in cyber heaven.


Several times in the last year or so I've dropped a hint to that effect
in one Linux-related list or another, but it's always been incidental to
the thread & no one's even asked `What's XyWrite?'

> I think you would need to make that case to someone who's a really big
cheese in the Linux world . . .

I doubt that's the way to go. In the Linux world the big cheeses don't
assign projects so much as choose from submissions by programmers who
_don't_ work for Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Ted T'so, et al. Just last
week Linus himself stressed at length that coding & development for
Linux isn't from the top down but from the bottom up.

However: suppose SuSE or Red Hat or IBM developed XyWrite as a going
concern under Linux: Linus wouldn't reject that any more than he's
rejected Gnome or KDE.

> Then there's the matter of who controls the code. . . .

Yes. Again, think IBM. Who else might extract the code from the
elusive Frank? And if you wonder about IBM's commitment to Linux, go to

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/

& click along Tutorials & training => All developerWorks tutorials =>
Linux -- where you'll see a list of 40 or so Linux tutorials. See also
the supercomputer IMB is to build for Lawrence Livermore, running on
Linux. Bear in mind that Sam Palmisano, IBM's new CEO, was in his
former job the company's principal promoter of Linux -- & that under him
IBM put a billion dollars into Linux & now boasts that the investment
has
been recovered.

But who to approach in behalf of XyWrite I can't tell you. It does seem
that someone in Armonk might be receptive to this line: `Back in '94 IBM
thought XyWrite a great program. Sure, you bailed out, but only because
upper management shut down the entire Desktop Software group.

`Now that IBM's again interested in desktop software . . . .'

Wendell Cochran
West Seattle