Re: Debian Linux and Non-Free Packages.
On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Alex Yukhimets wrote:
> Guys, what I am doing is a high-quality gui programming. (sorry if it
> sounds a bit ... not humble). Even Motif is not enough for this kind
> of task. I am using most of the features of Motif 2.0 (those which
> are also present in 2.1) - this rules lesstif out. And still, it was
> not enough. I even thought of using the VERY non-free, (check out the
> prices on www.klg.com), the XRT PDS widget set for Motif. There were
> several other alternatives though, due to the very long history of
> Motif many free widgets were created. I compared several of them and
> found that the gain from XRT PDS would be minimal, ended up with using
> some free (but still Motif-based) widgets (XbaeMatrix comes to mind).
that's fine, you can program in whatever toolkit you prefer.
however, you have to accept the fact that some of your choices may be
incompatible with free software licensing.
it's up to you...make your choice and stick with it. there are
advantages and disadvantages with whatever you choose.
if you want wide distribution and adoption of your software in the free
software community, then use a free/open source toolkit. if you don't
care about that then use motif or some other proprietary toolkit.
if you do want lots of people to use your software, and lesstif or
other toolkit isn't good enough for your needs then you should join the
development team of one of the projects and contribute code until it is
good enough.
> If you like, I can send you a pilot prototype so that you can compare
> its look with the one of, say, gzilla.
no thanks, i'm not terribly interested in software which i can't modify
if i need to. (i don't have motif so i can't recompile it even if it is
free)
For me, the look and feel of a program is not as important as it's
technical merits. Openness of the code is a heavily weighted factor in
my judgement of technical merit - being completely open source with no
dependancies on non-free stuff scores very high, not being completely
free scores extremely low. It's not the only factor, but it's a very
important one.
craig
--
craig sanders
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