Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!nueces!chari
From: chari@nueces.cactus.org (Chris Whatley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Alternate as a Meta key in emacs??
Message-ID: <1990Feb26.050129.879@nueces.cactus.org>
Date: 26 Feb 90 05:01:29 GMT
References: <23460001@pnl-geo.UUCP> <1990Feb25.001112.17746@athena.mit.edu> <16228@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <9523@portia.Stanford.EDU> <1702@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <6924@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Nueces Inc.
Lines: 32

morrison@cs.ubc.ca (Rick Morrison) writes:

>It would be in NeXT's best interest to develop the "NeXTStep client side" for
>other platforms -- Sun, HP/Apollo, SGI, Mips (coincidentally, just the
>stable of machines we have here at UBC:-). Then, at least one half of the
>standard objection: "Why develop software for a proprietary window system
>with a small installed base?" would be removed.

There is support for non-NeXT machines to connect to the window server
via TCP/IP (vs. the standard method by Mach messages). It is the NSWSd
daemon. So, my point is, it wouldn't be that hard to write NeXTStep
code for an SGI or a Sun (especially after the Objective-C mods to GNU
get spread around a bit more).

>Of course, NeXT could take a really bold step and release the whole thing
>to the public domain, as Sun (sort of) did with NFS. Or is it already too
>late? Are we really going to be stuck with X windows for the next 10 years?

Yeah, sure. I can just hear Jobs saying...

	Well, we made IBM pay over $10 million fit but hey, we'll
	give it to everybody else for free!

I think it is too late. But, with the recent (very nice) release of X,
I think that we can look forward to a positive future for X.


-- 
Christopher M. Whatley
Research Systems Administrator - University of Texas Mathematics
Work: chari@math.utexas.edu (preferably not NeXT Mail) (512/471-7711)
Home: chari@nueces.cactus.org (NeXT Mail)	      (512/499-0475)