Re: [OT] Gnat cross compiling FreeBSD to Win32 ?

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Time travel and crystal balls would be the most useful field of all. :-) I
agree that a technical background is only mildly useful in predicting what
will be the dominant technology. Technical knowledge gives you some sense of
"Features" but lots more goes into buying decisions than just "Features"
(try "Costs" and "Benefits" as the two other categories typically
identified.) Experts in marketing would be far better equipped in
identifying what the market is likely to be buying in the next few years.

Linux certainly has its die-hard followers and it has made some significant
inroads into the market. But the last time I checked at Costco, I didn't see
a single machine sitting on the shelf that had Linux installed. Do any of
the major manufacturers of PCs offer Linux as a pre-installed package?
(Maybe some do - I have not checked lately) Are machines from major
manufacturers available with Linux running on them, on display at CompUSA?
When you go into Best Buy and leaf through all the jewl-box editions of
software being offered up - or even the up-scale packages in boxes with
manuals, how much Linux software do you see?

Saying you can get the same stuff from the Internet free or cheap and go
cobble your own OS/Apps together from there is saying "Only geeks will use
Linux." I think when Linux has access to the gondolas and shelves in the big
consumer electronics stores, we can start talking about it being a real
threat to Windows. Until then, its largely a *potential* threat - albeit one
that Bill Gates clearly takes very seriously.

To get mildly back on topic, Ada advocates might take a lesson from that.
Ada needs to appear in places where programmers make buy-decisions and needs
to address what it is that programmers want to buy. To some extent, Ada is
dealing with this much better of late. But it sure would be good to have
some professional marketing research available & a marketing strategy carved
out.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message
news:qsXCmOF9Z+l+@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> For me it is hard to discern the discipline in which they need to be
> informed in order to be accurate.  Marketing, and psychology would
> seem to be more useful than programming, but best of all would be a
> thorough background in time-travel.