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List:       freebsd-hackers
Subject:    MetaCard for FreeBSD?
From:       Brian Tao <taob () gate ! sinica ! edu ! tw>
Date:       1995-03-31 10:42:23
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    I saw a recent announcement from Metacard Corp. about ports of
their hypertext Metacard Motif authoring tool to additional platforms.
They now list 14 hardware/OS architectures, but FreeBSD isn't one of
them.  :(  Linux was on the list, which is what prompted me to write
this letter.  ;-)

    For those of you who haven't heard of MetaCard, it's a commercial
development tool very similar to Apple's Hypercard.  I have the
save-disabled demo version running on an AIX box and it's quite a nice
package.  They have a Web site at http://www.metacard.com.

    I wrote to MetaCard about a FreeBSD port and got this reply:

On Thu, 30 Mar 1995, Scott Raney wrote:
> > 
> >     Are there any plans for a FreeBSD 2.0 version of MetaCard?  I
> > notice you support Linux, but not any of the other free PC Unices.  :(
> 
> We have no plans for a BSD port at this point.  The Linux port is
> barely pulling its weight at this point, and since the Linux installed
> base probably outnumbers the BSD installed base about 10 to 1
> (probably a 100 to 1 if you don't count BSD machines used as
> routers/servers/firewalls) it wouldn't be cost effective to do the
> port.  Supporting 3 different PC Unixes (Linux, SCO ODT, and
> UnixWare/Solaris x86) is already stretching things kind of thin.
> 
> We'd certainly consider doing a port if a porting fee could be
> arranged, or if we could get someone to commit to purchasing a dozen
> copies of MetaCard for that platform.
>   Regards,
>     Scott
> 
> -- 
> ***********************************************************************
> * Scott Raney  303-447-3936            Remember: the better you look, *
> * raney@metacard.com                   the more you'll see -- Lidia   *
> ***********************************************************************

    MetaCard would be a nice addition to the list of commercial apps
that support FreeBSD.  A *BSD Consortium with some financial pull
would come in really handy for offers like this.  I don't know how
much they ask for a "porting fee", but a dozen licenses adds up to
$2340 (Linux and Desqview/X versions have a special price of $195 per
license).  They also offer a 50% discount to academic users off their
$495/license price on other platforms.

    Any comments?  Should I just stick with Tcl/Tk?  :)
-- 
Brian ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't") Tao
taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw <-- work ........ play --> taob@io.org

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