[BTP]

First, I am not a developer and I want to see if I can get some information here.

I am encouraging a developer I know to port their collaboration software to OS X. It is a really good heavy duty piece of collaboration software that is used by large industries- i.e., manufacturing. Currently it exists on Windows only. Porting it is an option, but they are currently swamped. I offered to gather preliminary information and if it is encouraging, they will have seriously consider porting.

The main concern is that their software is component based modeling (COM) based. There told me that Linux has a way around that, but nothing beyond that in Unix. Is there anything in OS X that will make porting easy/possible? If they can get past this, they are willing to do the GUI. If it makes a difference, the app is written in C++.

Can you all give me some direction on this or point me to where I could search for the information? It is a good piece of software that I would like to do all I can to encourage them to port it.

Also, I had no answer for why OS X is using the BSD Mach kernel over the Linux kernel? Any one care to inform me?

Thanks!

-BTP

[DaGuy]

I believe that one of the many reasons for choosing BSD is that it has a less restrictive open source license that appears to be better aligned with Apple's long term strategy than that of Linux (which is under the GNU license).

[eyadams]

> The main concern is that their software is component based modeling (COM)
> based. There told me that Linux has a way around that, but nothing beyond
> that in Unix.

I'm curious as to what your friends have in mind vis a vis porting to Linux. There is at least one free product, called Wine (www.winehq.com), that makes it easier to port Windows apps to Intel based versions of Unix. Wine maps Windows API calls to Linux native API calls; using it a vendor can basically compile their Windows source code against the Wine libraries and deliver a "native" Linux / FreeBSD / Solaris application (this is the path that Corel took with WordPerfect). However, as far as I know Wine only runs on Intel hardware, which rules out OS X.

There are commercial products that do the same thing as Wine, some of which run under Solaris; I would think it is safe to assume that it would be possible under OS X as well, though I'm not aware of any.

If you rule out libraries like Wine, porting to OS X is probably no more or less difficular than porting to any other version of Unix. Anything written as a COM object would have to be re-written either to as a straight C++ object or as some other kind of object, like CORBA. Neither path is painless.

All that said, if a product is designed from the beginning to be cross platform, there is very little extra work to do. But it's easier if you design in that decision from the beginning, rather than starting from a Windows app and trying to move outward.

[BTP]

>I'm curious as to what your friends have in mind vis a vis porting to Linux.

That was in converstion. I was told that Linux has the tools to make it possible, not that they were porting to Linux, but that it was possible.

They did write this without looking to port it, but are open to the idea. I just wanted to nudge them into OS X. They missed a *HUGE* contract because the client wanted a Java version and they couldn't deliver in time.

Thanks for the reply.

[bojangles]

I�m trying to find someone that would be willing to port a freeware app from Windows to Jaguar. It�s for a church, so there�s no $$$ involved (I know; big downer), but with millions of people using the Windows version (and the only current solution for Jaguar being VPC), you�d certainly be helping Mac users everywhere by porting it.

I guess you could write off the time on your taxes, since it�s service for a non-profit organization.

Any takers?

[Detrius]

Originally posted by bojangles:
I�m trying to find someone that would be willing to port a freeware app from Windows to Jaguar. It�s for a church, so there�s no $$$ involved (I know; big downer), but with millions of people using the Windows version (and the only current solution for Jaguar being VPC), you�d certainly be helping Mac users everywhere by porting it.

I guess you could write off the time on your taxes, since it�s service for a non-profit organization.

Any takers?

Describe the app.

[bojangles]

The application is called Personal Ancestral File, and is one of the world's most widely used family history programs. The Windows version is up to v.5.2.18 (and counting), and is a free download from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' FamilySearch. The program is designed to help individuals track their own family history, including the ability to import and export files in GEDCOM (the standard genealogy) format.

Unfortunately, the Mac version stalled at v.2.3.1. Interestingly, it still has a better interface than the new Windows version and allows you to print reports that require a non-freeware add-on on the Windows side. Unfortunately, the Windows version has progressed to include the ability to record much, much more than the old Mac version can, and because of the demands of the third-party programmers that created v.2.3.1 for Mac OS, there's a $10 charge associated with it. (No, that's not too bad - even the DOS version sells for $15! - but it's still one more reason for the uninformed to think Macs are too expensive.)

Bottom line: I am not an official representative of the Church, but according to the people I've spoken to at Church Headquarters, a lot of people (including several at the HQ itself) are asking for this. Jag needs PAF. (Even 2.3.1 runs sporadically in Classic). I've tried to set it up myself in FileMaker Developer - basically the extent of my programming abilities - but the GEDCOM import/export has proved to be more trouble than it's worth - you'd have to know which script to run, etc. (If anyone has any suggestions for other languages, development software, etc., I'm willing to do it myself; I'm just not that experienced with programming.)

So... the scope of this might be scaring some of you off, but any takers?

PAF (Retail versions)
PAF (free downloads for Microsoft Windows)