Strategic : RunRev and Linux [was : RunRev Script Editor and Linux]

[Pierre Sahores]

Thanks for this, Peter ! Hopefully, your post will help ...

Best, Pierre

Le 15 juil. 2010 à 10:28, Peter Alcibiades a écrit :

> 
> I'm not (publicly at least) telling Kevin how to run his business.  I am
> saying to him, I bought it, and I want it to work.  That is an entirely
> legitimate point to make, first privately, then publicly if that has no
> results.
> 
> Are native Linux apps distro and installation specific?  No.  Are they
> compiled individually?  Yes.  You can download the source code for gedit and
> compile it on any Linux installation with the classic
> 
>     configure
>     make
>     make install
> 
> We do not have a version of gedit which is tweaked for ion2 or Debian.  We
> have a version of gedit that is written to be compileable so as to run on
> any Linux.
> 
> Installation differs from distro to distro, because the various files may be
> in different places, and they use different package managers.  The source
> code is the same however.   But this specific install issue is not what is
> going wrong with Rev.  It is not being released in an apt or rpm version for
> installation, its being released as a universal binary that should just run
> from the home directory, from /etc - from anyplace.  
> 
> Take RealBasic.  You download a package.  From memory, they have deb, rpm
> and universal binary versions.  I picked the universal binary, put it in my
> home directory, fired it up, and it runs.  If its correctly written why
> wouldn't it?  If RealBasic can do it, Rev can do it.
> 
> We need to accept the real situation.  This is not about whether some of us
> are suited to a particular programming language more than another.  Rev
> suits me perfectly, when it works.  Its about whether core functionality of
> a particular programming language works as required and as advertised.
> 
> Its not about standardizing on one distro.  Python does not have to
> standardize on one distro, gedit does not, RealBasic does not, neither does
> Rev.  The task is to run on Linux.  That's the standard.  If it don't run on
> a plain vanilla install of Debian or Suse or Red Hat, it ain't a product.
> 
> It is not that Rev works perfectly, but only on one distro that it has
> standardized on.  It does not work properly on any distro.  This is why,
> while releasing a community distro with Rev preinstalled might be a step
> towards diagnosing the problem,  it is not the solution to the problem.
> 
> It is not that some of us do not have the dependencies that Rev needs either
> installed, properly installed, or properly configured.   This could happen I
> suppose, but it is Rev's problem and not ours if it does.  A well behaved
> Linux application will test for the short list of dependencies that Rev has
> and notify the user if they are missing.   And they are, incidentally,
> minimal.  It will be hard to find a mainstream distribution that does not
> include them.
> 
> I have found Window Managers Rev will not run on.  I've not found a distro
> it will not run on. 
> 
> It is not about whether Linux is suitable for the desktop.  It is, but if
> even were it not, this would not be a valid excuse for releasing product
> that does not work on it.  If you really don't think its suitable for the
> desktop, don't sell product that is doomed for failure when attempting to
> run on it.  Of course, Linux is perfectly suitable for the desktop, and
> there is no reason why you cannot have stable applications on it. 
> Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/Suse have tens of thousands of them.
> 
> Should we use workarounds?
> 
> In a way yes, that was a route I took in the beginning.  The editor crashes,
> use Geany.  The fonts don't show, use the few ones that do.  Printing?  Use
> awk to reformat, or output to a handwritten .rtf file and pipe it into
> OpenOffice.  Of course, all this is the reverse of write once and run
> everywhere, but still.  The screen?  Reset the resolution every time you use
> Rev?  This is where I draw the line.  No, I'm not doing that.  As a
> customer, I won't be treated like this by any company.
> 
> What should we do for Rev?  It seems to me that the best thing we could do
> for them is, stop making excuses for them.  Python, RealBasic, PyQT, PyGTK,
> Perl, Lua.... they all run on Linux without all this stuff.  There is no
> reason Rev cannot too.  It must, if its to have a future on the platform.
> -- 
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--
Pierre Sahores
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