“Change is a great way to polarize any community. It should
come as no great surprise that when Inprise announced plans to
develop RAD tools for the Linux platform, the responses from the
Borland developer community were stereo cries of “Oh Yes!” and “Oh
No!” – with a background channel of “uh, what?.“
“I’d like to address some of the commonly expressed fears,
misconceptions, and even misplaced euphoria that I’ve heard over
the past few weeks. These are my personal opinions, not
Inprise/Borland company policy. These questions may be paraphrased
from actual conversations with actual customers. Responses may
contain actual opinions and/or sarcasm. Be prepared to wash your
eyes out with soap. Safe harbor statement: Forward looking
statements are the fantasy we endeavor to make reality. If you buy
high and sell low, well, that’s pretty dumb isn’t it?…”
“As for Borland’s testing of its Linux tools, Linux offers new
opportunities. Unlike the Windows realm, chances are good that the
many purveyors of Linux variants (er, distributions) will assist us
with testing our products on their platforms. If they don’t
understand the incentives to help developers support their Linux
flavors, they won’t last very long. Linux distributions are
becoming a commodity market, and commodities are distinguished more
by name, endorsements, and availability (placement) than by actual
feature differences.”