Intel Transition Quote - Thougths?

[Guest]

Trolling the rumor mills and came across this:

http://www.macosxrumors.com/articles/2005/06/25/developers-speak-out-on-the-big-switch-part-iii/

Any thoughts?

[ovvldc]

[OPENSTEP]

Louis isn't an engineer so I'd take anything he says about technical details with a grain of salt. Unfortunately he may not realize that to run on Mactel machines, even OOo X11 will need to be ported again.

While Java may be cross platform, the method of embedding virtual machines is not processor independent. A PowerPC application on Mactel cannot embed a virtual machine into its address space as the Java implementation on Mactel is Intel based. Since OOo X11 2.0 uses Java based components, it will need to embed a virtual machine as well...so it needs to be ported to the Intel tools exactly the same as Neo/J.

ed

[sardisson]

I think in part Louis's answer was a good non-answer (since, unlike management in traditional companies, he can't really speak for the porting team), but it does also sound like he's not aware of some of the technical issues (the Java quote, for example, but the compiler bridges are AIUI the bigger issue); AFAIK, he's not a developer, so I don't necessarily expect him to be familiar with all of the issues (I certainly haven't read the Universal Binary document; that's what engineers (Ed ) are for ).

As I said elsewhere in the thread with Ed, I'm of two minds about statements like this. On one hand it's good not to scare Mac users with doom-and-gloom scenarios (especially given OOo's precarious situation/reputation on the Mac), but on the other hand the Apple-koolaid-drinking statements do create unrealistic expectations that it's a piece of cake and lead users to believe that any dev/company that doesn't have a Universal Binary on day one is either lazy or not committed to the Mac.

So in that sense, the answer is not bad. It's non-commital enough not to dash hopes but not to unrealisticly raise them, either

(Er, I see while I went to dinner with this post unfinished, Ed came by )

Smokey

[jakeOSX]

my favorate were some of the slashdot posts that prophisized that oo.o would now simply just work on a mac. poof!

because, ed and patrick, if you didn't know, ALL of your issues are just with the PPC, once we go intel, *magic happens*

oh! and it will be aqua too! and make coffee! (or beer for ed!)

and bill gates will cry because he will love it so much and make MS a mac company.

and it is really early...

-j

[Guest]

I was reading Josh Ash's blog over at Mozilla and he mentioned that he has possession of an Intel Mac Dev Kit. I think he's based somewhere in Mountain View.

Maybe the two of you could share?

[sardisson]