Re: Please explain Motif issues (was: StarOffice under Debian)
"James A. Robinson" writes:
->
-> > Can someone point me toward the FAQ or HOWTO that will explain the
-> > issues with Motif? Why is Motif hard to come by and what is Lesstif?
->
-> Motif is a set of "proprietary" libraries licensed by OSF. So it
-> costs money to get them. I've bought them for $99.00 at InfoMagic
-> (http://www.infomagic.com), but I've heard some people quote and
-> amazingly low price of $40.00. Normally one sees them going for
-> $200.00 or so.
To be more explicit, it's a proprietary implementation of an 'open'
API. The name 'Motif' is a trademark, and the actual code is
copyright, but the API is 'open'. The going rate I've seen is
generally $99-$199. The only way you might see it for $40 is if it's
the runtime package only (just the shared libs) as vendors have to pay
$40 for each development pachage they ship to OSF (Development package
is libs and header files - source is on the order of $15,000, I
think). If I understand the licencing correctly, the shared lib may be
shipped without the header files without charge, which would allow you
to use dynamically linked Motif programs, but not compile Motif apps
on your own. I'm not a lawyer, so I could be wrong on this.
-> Lesstif is an attempt to duplicate the API of Motif, without using the
-> proprietary source code. They want to allow anybody to compile and
-> run Motif programs using Lesstif. Lesstif is free, and is put out by
-> the Hungry Programmers (http://www.hungry.com). As far as I can tell,
-> it is still very unstable, and not usable for something like
-> StarOffice. But others who have actually used it should speak up.
It's made lots of progress, and certain apps run OK with it. However,
it's still not quite there yet for larger apps.
-Larry
--
Larry Daffner | Linux: Unleash the workstation in your PC!
vizzie@airmail.net / http://web2.airmail.net/vizzie/
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but
when you do, it blows away your whole leg. -- Bjarne Stroustrup on C++
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