RE: Windows and DLLs

["Dries, Joseph" <joseph dries lmco com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	David Jeske [SMTP:jeske@home.chat.net]
> Sent:	Wednesday, September 30, 1998 10:08 PM
> To:	gnome-list@gnome.org
> Subject:	Re: Windows and DLLs
> 
> On Wed, Sep 30, 1998 at 09:51:04PM -0400, Federico Mena Quintero wrote:
> > >  Y'all might be interested in knowing about Microsoft's solution to
> their DLL
> > >  Hell problem; it's called Windows Installer.
> > [yadda yadda]
> > 
> > Can we *PLEASE* end this discussion?  It is completely off-topic for
> > this list.
> 
> I completely disagree, Gnome is challenged with making a desktop for
> Linux. At least some of this is in the interest of widening Linux's
> acceptance by making it more accessable to average users. I believe
> that problems average users have with mainstream systems is of the
> utmost importance.
> 
	Wrong. Gnome is challenged with making an open-source desktop for
UNIX-like operating systems, including Linux. Linux happens to be the
primary OS for development, and it definitely furthers Linux's cause by
providing another Desktop (in addition to CDE and KDE). Those things make
Linux more accessible to the general public, but Gnome is not, as defined by
it's own manifesto, Linux specific.

> In addition, Gnome is also intended to widen the Linux applications
> base by providing a standard desktop environment for developers to
> write for. If this application based does widen sufficiently, we are
> going to start to run into the same kinds of problems that other
> mainstream systems with lots of applications (namely Windows) run
> into. Discussing these issues before Gnome has finalized how
> everything works, while it's early enough to do something about it
> where possible, is crucial.
> 
	If you s/Linux/UNIX/g I would agree, as long as you work within the
existing infrastructure of all target UNIX OS's. This kind of lends itself
to a similar solution that NeXTstep implemented, which is the
app-wrapper/encap that keeps being bandied about the list much to
Frederico's disdain.