Clean is loosing portability in favour of Windows :(

[Antonio Eduardo Costa Pereira]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Alan Hutchinson <alanh@dcs.kcl.ac.uk>

> >  I have been
> > waiting for improvements for the Linux platform for some time
> 
> my feelings exactly.  I write code on both platforms occasionally,
> but my sympathies are all with the Linux open concept.
> I feel happier working with an OS which I understand, where
> everything is comprehensible, at least in principle.

I agree, but I can see that Clean team has a point too. Linux people
do not seem to worry about portability, or about making their system
user-friendly (at least, this is what a recent issue of Scientific American
says about Linux). Consider, for example, the graphic user interfaces.
A popular Linux distribution chooses not to include openwin. It is true
that a user well versed in shaving bits will be able to download it,
install it, and even make Clean io. What I saw, however, is people 
giving up Clean IO Library or Linux, after repeated failures in 
installing openlook. It seems that openwin is not supported by Clean
community any more. In a download site, people recomends against
keeping with openwin. Therefore, the first step for Clean would be
migrating to something else. What I would suggest to Clean people
 is showing how to link Clean applications to some popular 
Linux GUI (gnome, windowmake, or whatever) and let people like
professor Romildo Malaquias do the job of building a library.

By the way, what about porting Clean to Native Oberon? This
operational system is easy to install, easy to use, robust, and
one can easily write hardware drivers for it. Besides this, its
GUI system, called Gadgets, is very handy.

Eduardo Costa