RE: Mac version of Mif2Go

["Gagne, Bernard (Bolton)" <bgagne@xxxxxxxx>]

Bravo!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy H. Griffith [mailto:jeremy@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 6:13 PM
To: framers@xxxxxxxxx; framers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Gagne, Bernard (Bolton)
Subject: Mac version of Mif2Go


On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 16:42:31 -0500, "Gagne, Bernard (Bolton)" 
<bgagne@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

>While it is fine to say you are adapting your Mif2Go for better migration
of
>Frame docs to Word, the fact remains that it is unavailable to Mac users of
>Frame, the ones most likely to need such a tool in the short term.

Sad to say, that's true.  When we last considered building a Mac
version, we simply didn't find anything like enough interest to 
justify the large investment.  We don't have any Mac programmers
here, especially not with the intimate knowledge of the foibles
of the Mac FDK that would be required for a successful port.
And with the economy tanking, we don't really have the resources
to do that for the few who need it...

However.  The situation has just changed.  And the outsourcing
policy of many greedy manufacturers has left a lot of good Mac
programmers filling out applications at WalMart.  (No, it's not
"equal opportunity" for those in other countries; don't kid
yourselves, my international friends.  It's more exploitation
courtesy of your neighborhood imperialists.  But I digress.)

So, a new initiative.  We will make our full source code (C++
for the command-line workhorses, C for the FDK) available to a
group of *qualified* Mac programmers, well experienced with FDK,
for porting.  The C++ is designed to be portable (we originated
it on SunOS, actually), but Windows dependencies have crept in
over the years.  The C/FDK code uses FDE heavily, but also has
some Windows API hacks in it for places where the FDK fell short.
We would require that the code be kept confidential, and would
plan on integrating it with our Windows code (using #ifdefs)
so that the Mac version tracked the Windows version.

The resulting Mac version would be free.  Our gift to a vibrant
Frame community that has not been treated real well lately...

We couldn't make it Open Source at this time, since we do plan
to continue selling the Windows version.  And we're not sure if
the FDK license agreement allows us to make the FDK source part
publically available either.  That's why we'd require an NDA...

And we do need to have a team of committed programmers for this,
as well as testers (*not* the same people).  Even if we cannot
pay participants, the drain on our time will be heavy, as we
explain several years' worth of complex code, done without the
benefit of much design documentation.

Whether this idea flies or not depends on the nature of the
responses we get.  We'll give it a week or two for the first
round of replies, then re-evaluate, and report back to the lists.

Thank you, Bernard, for instigating this...  ;-)

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  <jeremy@xxxxxxxxx>  http://www.omsys.com/

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