How about sponsoring from IBM?

[David Elliott]

On 2002.01.11 14:49 Roland wrote:
> At 07:57 PM 1/11/02 +0100, Joerg Mayer wrote:
> 
>> It looks like IBM spends its money on the products they themselvs use
>> heavily, as well as training and making the name of Linux more popular
>> (aka advertising/PR).
> 
> Hmm, I think 10 Million on WINE would do more advertising on the long 
> run by attracting Windows Users and spreading the word, then the same 
> amount spent on ads. If you really want to make Linux popular, running 
> Windows software is the way, think about all the apps and games!!!
> 

hahahhahahahahaahahahahahahaha

Sorry, ROTFLMAO, see below.

>> I may have missed it but I haven't seen IBM spend
>> money on a Linux(related) project just to further the project. If they
>> wanted to spend $10e7 just to improve programs/tools just for the "good"
>> of it I would be sad to see this money spent on wine. I'd like to see
>> it spent on the development/improvement of *native* Linux apps that
>> fulfill the need of current Windows users.
> 
> Well, you have two options:
> 
> 1. Spend money on thousands of native Linux apps to capture the Windows 
> users.
> 2. Spend money on ONE native Linux app(WINE) to make it run thousands of 
> Windows apps and attract the corresponding users.
> 
> I think option 2 is the more intelligent and cheaper option.
> 

Read up on your computer history a bit son.

OS/2 ran Windows apps, and from about version 2 upwards ran all DOS and 
Windows stuff perfectly (except for the Win32s stuff).  I am sure IBM does 
/not/ want to make the same mistake again.

However WinOS/2 actually was running Windows 3.x.  In fact, the technology 
was extremely similar to SCO Merge (which now has offspring-- Win4Lin).  
One nice thing it could do that win4lin could not was actually put 
toplevel windows onto the desktop directly (though they still had the 
win31 look).  This would look similar to running Wine in non-desktop and 
non-managed mode, although the windows actually were managed by OS/2.

Some people would argue that had IBM comitted to supporting Win32 stuff 
that OS/2 would still be around.  Of course the bottom line is that the 
way they were doing this meant MS got the money for a copy of Windows 
every time someone bought OS/2.  Not good.  Wine wouldn't have that 
problem assuming it would be using all wine DLLs.

As for IBM investing in Wine.  I suppose there are a couple things they 
could do.  For one, they could somehow use the $10e6 you suggest but who 
would they pay it to.  What might be more helpful is if some of the guys 
and gals that wrote OS/2 would help out with Wine.  They would probably be 
extremely familiar with Win32 seeing as how OS/2 was originally a joint 
MS/IBM project which MS got out of when they hacked Win3.0 to support 
virtual memory on a 386 and decided to make NT.  Now while the NT kernel 
was developed by former VMS guys and gals from DEC, some of Win32 
resembles OS/2 because some of those developers went on to work on NT.  
Which by the way no-one has confirmed that MS ever said it actually stood 
for New Technology.. more likely it stands for Nice Tits, but that's 
another story.

Anyway, the bottom line is that IBM is not going to start throwing money 
at stuff.  They made that mistake with OS/2 and look where that got 'em.  
No, IBM spends money when and where it helps their bottom line.  Taking 
down MS does not help their bottom line.  Building their own services does 
help their bottom line.  IBM could care less if everyone could run Windows 
software on Linux.  They are in the business of providing the totally 
integrated system.  Running 3rd party stuff is usually not a top priority.

Note that IBM has already caught the eye of MS with IBMs ad campaign for 
moving onto 390 systems running Linux.  Some of those internal MS memos 
recently released are really anti-IBM.  Right now I think MS is at the 
point where they have competitors.  They can go after companies using 
Linux just like they have gone after companies in the past.  They are also 
going after various IT admins who use Linux for certain tasks suggesting 
that MS software is better for everything.  Of course anybody that tells 
you that one system is better than all others is full of shit, but hey, it 
sounds good to some managers who don't want to listen to the people they 
have working for them.  Let 'em waste their money on MS.  When it breaks, 
let 'em waste more money on moving it back to what worked.  MS is going to 
shoot itself in the foot soon enough, no need to bring out your own 
shotgun.

-Dave