"sb" == SL Baur <steve(a)xemacs.org> writes:
sb>
>>> A year or so from now, if things keep going the way they have been,
>>> nearly all of our users will be on either Linux or some flavor of
>>> Microsoft Windows. Linux has been the most popular Unix to run XEmacs
>>> on[1] since 19.14.
sb>
>> I don't believe that's true. :-(
sb>
sb> The statement is absolutely true under the condition given in the
sb> footnote:
sb>
>>> Footnotes:
>>> [1] With regards to counts of downloads of binary kits from the FTP site.
You can't dispute raw numbers, but I don't think this is an accurate usage
indicator. I'd venture that most of the non-Linux binary kit downloads are
used by more than one person (does an average of 10 sound reasonable?),
while most Linux downloads are single-user.
>> I really like Linux, but most larger installations (universities or
>> companies) use a 'commercial' Unix.
That's definitely true. No matter how good Linux is or will become, large
corporations will go commercial every time. It's one thing to use free
software for utilities, but it's an entirely different story when you're
talking about the OS.
As for the portability issue mentioned at the start of this thread, I've
already run into problems with some other packages, and it's pretty
frustrating when you're on the wrong end of it. A while back I was looking
for a music CD player to run on our HPUX machines and most of what I found
was Linux-only. Besides containing hardware-specific code, there were
unconditional hardcoded references to linux/* header files--not a chance of
making it work. I realize that most of the people developing packages such
as this are doing so with Linux as the only available platform, but it
really limits the "market" for their end product. Maybe they don't really
care, but I think *we* should if we want XEmacs to be available to as many
people as might want to use it.
sb> That's undoubtedly true. How much does it skew the numbers? I don't
sb> know. The number is complicated by the fact that many XEmacs users
sb> use it on multiple platforms including Linux at home. Do you count
sb> them twice?
I'd estimate that maybe 10% of the software people I deal with have Linux
at home. Most of them are Prisoners of Bill when they're on their own
time. :-(
sb> I'm vaguely interested in getting an order of magnitude (or two)
sb> count, but not enough to want to invade people's privacy.
I can vouch for my site, whose free software directory is mirrored to
selected General Motors and Delphi Automotive sites around the world. A
couple of months ago I put an invocation wrapper around XEmacs to log usage
and counted 275 different users over a 2 week period. These people are all
using SunOS and HPUX binaries I built and installed from the source
distribution.
--
Mike Scheidler c23mts(a)eng.delcoelect.com
Corporate Software Technology
Delphi Delco Electronics Systems PHONE: (765) 451-0319
Kokomo, IN 46904-9005 GMNET: 8-322-0319