On Thursday, November 12, The Hermit Hacker wrote:
> 
> 	Actually, I have to quickly agree with Chuck on this...I don't
> personally want WordPerfect, mind you.  But, I would be willing to pay for
> a copy of StarOffice 5.0 if it were native to FreeBSD, since it would
> effectively allow me to totally ditch any reliance I have on Winbloze...
> 
> 	I wish there were a way of "convincing" commercial enterprises to
> port to us :(


Working in an commercial environment, where whole universities have asked
for certain ports of the software, I can say the following.  The companies
are not just interested in getting something running, slapping it on a CD
and shipping it to whoever pays some minimal amount for it.  (I doubt you
can afford the real cost of development.  That might run several $100K for
a decent sized product.)

They also want to run it through their test suites, get managers to sign off
on it, run it through SQA, fix critical bugs in it, etc.  I doubt there are
companies out there, who would release a flagship product of theirs, untested.
It would have bugs in it, and would damage the reputation of the company...

At least, that is they way most of them seem to think.


--Toby.
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