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Liken, MAE, and a crazy thought...
I wonder if ARDI could look into buying/licensing the code for
the Liken Macintosh emulator, and taking the code which let it run
Apple's System files on Executor. If this could be done quick+dirty
enough, it would be a good way to boost compatibility without working too
hard.
Is it me, or is MAE just plain too expensive ($495???). Even if
it DID run on an Intel platform, it would still cost too much, and that
would still leave a wide market for Executor.
In addition, how much work would it take to actually make
Executor run System 7.x. I know trying to run 6.0.7/8 segfaulted at a
certain point, so if the bugs could be tracked down, using GDB or other
debuggers... it MIGHT not take too long to get it up (but then again, it
might take a long time.)
Personally, I consider getting System 7.x to work, and a SVGAlib
Linux version (which would be as fast, or faster than Executor/DOS video,
since it can map a linear frame buffer on VLB cards) the top two items on
my wish list for post-2.0 work.
In addition, would it be possible to make a 'frontend' link-kit
(a executor.a library with all non-frontend code, and the source for the
front-end video sections outside of that library) which would help
facilitate ARDI outsiders such as myself work on things such as SVGAlib
support? I'd be interested into working on that, if possible.
(And now, some thoughts that might be crazy enough to actually
work, or the result of me going nuts!)
Actually, that's nothing compared to an idea I have : place
large parts of Executor under the GPL, or something similar. But, keep
cool stuff such as the enhanced 68040 emulator ARDI-proprietary, and use
the 1.2x synthetic CPU in the GPL version.
Or, if that's too much... GPL 1.2e + compatibility enhancements
taken from the 1.99x versions.
This SOUNDS crazy from a business perspective, but if ARDI could
organize independant development of Executor, and use the code developed
outside ARDI in new versions of Executor, it would ease the effects of
the lack of engineers that ARDI has, and vastly increase development.
This could even possibly increase sales in the long run, since
the color/enhanced CPU version could only be bought from ARDI. Even if
the other parts were redeveloped outside (which would take a long time
given how the WINE project is going), ARDI could still function as a
support business, much like Aladdin runs Commercial Ghostscript and
Cygnus Support handles gcc/gdb/etc..., and ARDI would still have the
general copyright, just like Linus Torvalds 'owns' the copyright on
Linux, and could add other enhancements as time went on.
I must be getting too much into the spirit of Linux... :)
- Chad Page
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