I have mailed variants of this letter to each of the major developers of
Linux/FreeBSD/BSDI motif implementations, and will be posting the results here.
If possible, as many of you as possible should do so as well.

My primary concern is with X Inside, which has recently discontinued support
for NetBSD in its product line.  This is especially unfortunate, as they now
support CDE for Linux, BSDI, and FreeBSD.

If as many of us as possible express our interest inthese products, perhaps
at least one vendor will reconsider...

----- begin response from orders@lasermoon.co.uk --

> I am writing to ask whether you intend to support NetBSD in future releases
> of SWiM.  I would be _very_ interested in a motif environment which I could
> run at home, but am not interested in switching to Linux or FreeBSD to get
> this.  I run NetBSD because it provides the most stable, clean, and well-
> designed OS freely available for Intel hardware, while also supporting a
> variety of other architectures (I also run the sparc and mac68k ports,
> for example).  In addition, by providing unprecedented levels of binary
> emulation, NetBSD allows me to use binaries compiled for Linux, BSDI, FreeBSD,
> SCO, Unixware, and SYSV/x86 right out of the box.  In a similar fashion, the
> sparc port allows me to use pre-compiled Solaris and SunOS binaries.
> 
> I would be very interested in a NetBSD version of SWiM, and am writing to see
> if this is being considered.
> 
> Among the advantages of supporting NetBSD:
> 
>   * Easy to do -- given working FreeBSD and BSDI ports, the differences between
>       these systems are minimal enough that a stable port should not take more
>       than two weeks.  NetBSD is a fully functional BSD 4.4 derivative, and
>       provides great support for the programmer.
> 
>   * Ability to branch out to multiple platforms -- Given a working NetBSD/x86
>       port, it should be relatively easy to support any of the 14 other
>       architectures (with 2 more in development) which NetBSD supports.
>       All of these architectures are completely source-compatible, and almost
>       all already support X11R6.1 right out of the box.
> 
>   * Demand -- currently no other vendor is supporting motif for NetBSD on any
>       platform.  By stepping in with such a product, lasermoon stands to win
>       sales from hundreds or thousands of current users of NetBSD, in return
>       for very little additional effort.
> 
> I hope you will reconsider your decision to discontinue support for NetBSD, as I
> would very much like to use your Motif products, and look forward to future
> releases...
> 
> -- 
> 
>                               Jim Wise
>                               System Administrator
>                               GSAPP, Columbia University
>                               jim@santafe.arch.columbia.edu
>                               http://www.arch.columbia.edu/~jim
>                               * Finger for PGP public key *
> 

hi

as far as i am aware neither lasermoon nor any other software production 
company has any intention of producing swim for net bsd mainly due to the 
lack of demand and the large expense involved in such a project 

regards 

 
  

-- 
Orders - orders@lasermoon.co.uk         WWW and FTP : ftp.lasermoon.co.uk
Lasermoon Ltd, The Forge, Fareham Road, Wickham, Hants, England. PO17 5DE
           Voice +44 (0) 1329 834944  Fax: +44 (0) 1329 834955
             +++ The UNIX & Linux Freeware Specialists! +++

----- end enclosure

--
                              Jim Wise
                              System Administrator
                              GSAPP, Columbia University
                              jim@santafe.arch.columbia.edu
                              http://www.arch.columbia.edu/~jim
                              * Finger for PGP public key *