🚀 go-pugleaf

in article mwron-8810A2.18463307062005@news.newsguy.com, MW Ron at
mwron@metrowerks.com wrote on 6/7/05 3:46 PM:

> I'll get you more information as it is made available to me.  the answer
> to most questions is going to be stay tuned for more information but
> feel free to ask.

Well, I second Richard Buckle's question here:

"Of course, it would help enourmously if MW were to either (a) provide
some official mechanism for submitting and distributing changes to
PowerPlant code, or (b) simply bite the bullet and open-source it.

What do you say, MetroWerks? Will you do us one final favour and open
PowerPlant (and maybe PPx) to either controlled developer contribution
or full open-source?"

since I've got lots of shipping PowerPlant-based projects (hell, I'm
developing two right NOW, the latest in the Paradox strategy game series,
which is still running on basically the same engine written for EU2 back in
the OS 9 days) and seven off the top of my head I'm pretty sure clients are
going to want updated for OS X86. An official statement from Metrowerks on
how I can do that legally, if I can at all, would be very welcome.

Preferably, an official statement of the form "Go ahead and make whatever
changes you need to make to build your projects with XCode and feel free to
redistribute whatever PowerPlant files are needed to your clients so they
have a complete buildable-on-XCode source tree."

Ideally, an official statement of the form "Everything in /PowerPlant is now
BSD licensed open source. Go wild!" After having faithfully supported
CodeWarrior ever since DR1 Gold, that doesn't strike me as a completely
unreasonable thing to request.

In article <mwron-8810A2.18463307062005@news.newsguy.com>, MW Ron
<mwron@metrowerks.com> wrote:

> Hello  
> 
> Below is a statement as to Metrowerks status regarding the Apple/Intel 
> announcement.
> 
> Metrowerks remains committed to its Mac customers. We continue to 
> support our Mac products and we intend to continue to sell our current 
> line of tools for Mac environments. 
> 
This seems to imply that CW 9 will continue to be sold, but it does not
imply that there will be any future revisions of CW. 

I do not see how there could be, except for a little bit of bug fixing. 
Soon the market for an IDE with compilers targeted to the PPC will be
shrinking.  There will be a demand for an IDE with compilers targeted
to the Intel chips  and to the API of Mac OS 10.something.  I don't see
how MW can get into that market with their x86 technology all gone. 

In principle, it might be possible to use somebody else's compilers
within an IDE that looks like CW.  In practice, I think it would be a
heroic feat to manage such a team effort.  So, CW is declining.  

We can piss and moan about this, and we can threaten to go out in the
garden and eat worms, but I don't think we can signify much by doing
so.  

Change happens.  If product lines were immortal, all our code would
have to be UNIVAC compatible.

-- 
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
God just doesn't fit inside a single religion.

MW Ron states "Metrowerks remains committed to its Mac customers."

While www.metrowerks.com states:
"Metrowerks recently sold its Intel x86 compiler and debugger
technology to a third party. As a result, Metrowerks will no longer
create and sell products that include this technology. Metrowerks will
offer support for these products by hosting on-line discussions on
newsgroupsand on our web site."

How can Metrowerks remain committed when they can't support future x86
based Macs?

In article <070620052240231706%chenrich@monmouth.com>,
 "Christopher J. Henrich" <chenrich@monmouth.com> wrote:

> In principle, it might be possible to use somebody else's compilers
> within an IDE that looks like CW.  In practice, I think it would be a
> heroic feat to manage such a team effort.  So, CW is declining.  

Been done in the past.  Back in the CW 4 or 5 days or so Apple produced 
MrC plug-ins for CW.  No debug, but you could compile and link just 
fine.  I used this developing code for an embedded system that we 
control from MPW - develop code in CW native, when happy switch compiler 
and compare, when happy switch to MPW.

Being done now.  Leastways that's the impression that I get from the 
Metrowerks pages pages on embedded linux support, where they say they 
support the GNU compiler collection with the ability to integrate 
alternative GNU compilers, see for example 
<http://www.metrowerks.com/pdf/PPC_Linux.pdf>.

                 Dave

>> Metrowerks remains committed to its Mac customers. We continue
>> to support our Mac products and we intend to continue to sell our
>> current line of tools for Mac environments.

Just vague enough to really not say really anything.  Continue to sell
your "current line" of tools?  Does that mean upgrades or not?  10
years aago, Symantec made pretty much the same statements, but what
they meant by it was: "We want to continue to take your money for our
tools, but we have no intention in investing any serious time or money
on them for the future."

I am hopeful that this is a good step forward, but more than just
weasel words will be needed here.

Lennart.Thelander@berga.nu wrote:
> MW Ron states "Metrowerks remains committed to its Mac customers."
> 
> While www.metrowerks.com states:
> "Metrowerks recently sold its Intel x86 compiler and debugger
> technology to a third party. As a result, Metrowerks will no longer
> create and sell products that include this technology. Metrowerks will
> offer support for these products by hosting on-line discussions on
> newsgroupsand on our web site."
> 
> How can Metrowerks remain committed when they can't support future x86
> based Macs?
> 

I would also have been standard for Metrowerks to sign a non-compete
contract, that is, they would have agreed not to get into competition
with their old x86 compiler offerings. Even without such a contract,
its grounds for suit.

Metrowerks screwed themselves competely. Ron can spin this anyway he
wants, but thats the bottom line.

I am listening and will communicate all to the powers that be.  

Keep them coming.

Please don't feel that my failure to comment means anything.


Ron

-- 
Metrowerks Community Forum is a free online resource for developers 
to discuss CodeWarrior topics with other users and Metrowerks' staff
        --   http://www.metrowerks.com/community  --

 Ron Liechty - MWRon@metrowerks.com - http://www.metrowerks.com

We have 30+ CW9 licenses.

For us a CW 10 release without a good Intel compiler worth nothing.
We have a large program and CW can link it/debug it with very good
speed.
XCode is at least 6x slower at these operations (in cases it not fails
with out of address space).

With a good Intel compiler/debugger CW would worth us more than the
current CW price. Without a good Intel compiler/debugger we won't
upgrade.

Regards,
Miklos

Since CW10 is supposed to be slated for 2nd Half 2005, and the Intel
machines are not out until mid-'06, I think it is reasonable to have a
CW10 that does not support Intel.  CW11 although ought to, since that
is when the mac begins its transition.

jonhoyle@mac.com wrote:
> Since CW10 is supposed to be slated for 2nd Half 2005, and the Intel
> machines are not out until mid-'06, I think it is reasonable to have a
> CW10 that does not support Intel.  CW11 although ought to, since that
> is when the mac begins its transition.

For Select and Premier ADC members, the Intel based Macs are available
NOW. If our products will be shipping (that means developed, tested,
debugged etc) on Intel next year, NOW is the time to start.

Lennart.Thelander@berga.nu wrote:

>For Select and Premier ADC members, the Intel based Macs are available
>NOW. If our products will be shipping (that means developed, tested,
>debugged etc) on Intel next year, NOW is the time to start.

Bing! And Mac OS X on Intel has been working fine for years. This is really
happening, folks! ;)

> Since CW10 is supposed to be slated for 2nd Half 2005, and the Intel
> machines are not out until mid-'06, I think it is reasonable to have a
> CW10 that does not support Intel.  CW11 although ought to, since that
> is when the mac begins its transition.

We don't know when the Intel Macs will start shipping. Steve could be
conservative with his timetable here and we could see Intel Macs as
early as January's Macworld Expo. Such a move would be good for Apple
because it would preempt speculation that would clearly come later and
show people they're on top of this transition.

Larry

In article <1120713427.779631.249440@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
 <larry@skytag.com> wrote:
>>  ...
>We don't know when the Intel Macs will start shipping. Steve could be
>conservative with his timetable here and we could see Intel Macs as
>early as January's Macworld Expo. Such a move would be good for Apple
>because it would preempt speculation that would clearly come later and
>show people they're on top of this transition.

It would also improve their cash flow from the people who are
postponing buying a new machine until the 'new' Macs are out.

-- 
					-- Rod --
rodd(at)polylogics(dot)com

> It would also improve their cash flow from the people who are
> postponing buying a new machine until the 'new' Macs are out.

Absolutely. There's no question that some people are going to hold off
purchasing a Mac until they see the Intel Macs *and* see that the
transition for users is going to be relatively painless. The #1
reaction I saw from users (as opposed to developers) to the Intel
announcement was that they were going to postpone a purchase.

Larry