Re: win32 port

[Josh Steiner <josh vitriolix com>]

hi, here are some of my opinions on this, do with them what you will ;)


Stefan Westerfeld wrote:

>   Hi!
>
> After hearing for the third time from some musician: "oh well, if BEAST
> would run under windows, I could look at it, but since it doesn't, I
> can't", today I decided to check out how much work porting might be.
>  

> Against the port:
> * the current approach of porting BEAST (cygwin) will require running
>   an X server, which is extremely unintuitive for Windows users
>  

have you looked at the approach that Gaim uses, using the gtk port for 
windows?

> * if we were to offer BEAST on Windows, we could reduce the attraction
>   Linux has for musicians, and thus the attraction to switch to a
>   completely free system
>  

i dont think thats too big of a concern.  much moreso is that a musician 
doesnt want to abondon the platform that has all his current songs 
trapped on.  so if Beast ran on windows, many people (like me) would be 
much more willing to look into it knowing that my songs will be 
portable.  that way i can cooperate with other musicians by sending them 
the beast-win32 installer and my song files (like i can do now with PD)

> * a port will probably be not as solid as the native version (as it
>   will be largely untested), which could leave a bad impression of
>   BEAST behind
>  

probably initially, but there is no intrinsic reason this is so.  PD and 
Gaim are both perfectly stable in their windows ports.

cheers,

josh

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