Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on July 25, 2002 03:10 AM
In Windows, you have many (too many) API's you can use to get the job done. Win32 is not 100% consistent, but they are *fairly* consistent. Linux has more API's than you can shake a rubber chicken at.
Worse still, there are multiple API's, such as KDE and GNOME. You CAN write apps that run under both environments, but you can NOT write apps that USE the "best of both worlds", and mix-and-match API sets under one program (Microsoft has older and some duplicating API's, and sometimes it's faster to use a 'depreciated' API as a short-term hack).
Lastly, the general consensus in Linux is GTK/GNOME is the future (certainly has room to improve! ), but KDE/Qt has a cleaner API and is easier to master. How sad then that GTK/GNOME is free for any kind of development, while Qt costs thousands of dollars with no "middle of the road" license for shareware developers. These guys DO love what they do, but can not afford to make their code GPL (so to use Qt/Free) or buy an expensive Qt/Commercial license.
There's plenty of reasons to not develop Linux. The ones I cite here are valid: there's a MUCH bigger "barrier to entry" in the Linux market compared to Windows, when it comes to Shareware.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
A *big* problem of porting apps to Linux is GUI
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on July 25, 2002 03:10 AMWorse still, there are multiple API's, such as KDE and GNOME. You CAN write apps that run under both environments, but you can NOT write apps that USE the "best of both worlds", and mix-and-match API sets under one program (Microsoft has older and some duplicating API's, and sometimes it's faster to use a 'depreciated' API as a short-term hack).
Lastly, the general consensus in Linux is GTK/GNOME is the future (certainly has room to improve! ), but KDE/Qt has a cleaner API and is easier to master. How sad then that GTK/GNOME is free for any kind of development, while Qt costs thousands of dollars with no "middle of the road" license for shareware developers. These guys DO love what they do, but can not afford to make their code GPL (so to use Qt/Free) or buy an expensive Qt/Commercial license.
There's plenty of reasons to not develop Linux. The ones I cite here are valid: there's a MUCH bigger "barrier to entry" in the Linux market compared to Windows, when it comes to Shareware.
#