Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!autodesk!glang From: glang@Autodesk.COM (Gary Lang) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: X11 for the NeXTstation Message-ID: <1875@autodesk.COM> Date: 7 Jan 91 07:33:04 GMT References: <1991Jan3.135628.78@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu> <49737@sequent.UUCP> <50361@cornell.UUCP> Organization: Autodesk Inc., Sausalito CA, USA Lines: 31 In-reply-to: jhr@maui.cs.cornell.edu's message of 6 Jan 91 20:49:40 GMT >>some kind of support for X11. NeXT is the only major workstation manufacturer >>that does not provide support for X11. As Sun and Dec and everyone else But NeXT is not a workstation manufacturer. One look at NeXTStep will tell you that. No, NeXT is a personal computer manufacturer. This means that standards like XWindows from the worlstation world are as inapplicable as standards for mainframe data access are. However, this is not to say that providing support is not an excellent aftermarket opportunity as it is on the Mac or Windows. With one of several products available on both of those platforms - and those are the real competitors to the NeXT computer - you will be able to run the 2 or three productivity packages that use X just fine. But there's little or no reason to force NeXT to run XWindows as a native window manager. In fact, there's a million reasons not to. Isn't somebody out there productizing XWindow servers for NeXTStep? now there's a product worth buying if you have Sun machines and applications that use this technology, but really how large is this market? Anyway, they could've done it I suppose using the X DPS extensions but why bother? Hmm, maybe there's some money to be made here... - g -- Gary T. Lang (415)332-2344 x2702 Autodesk, Inc. Sausalito, CA. MCI: 370-0730