Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes: > Also, companies that go bankrupt are a danger to healthy competition. > They are able to make their creditors and shareholders pay for their > losses and bad management and then to start anew with assets that they > essentially got for free, quite unlike the competition that has not gone > bankrupt, who have to pay full price for their assets, but quite similar > to how their customers have wanted their products, for too little money.
This is obviously true, but it's applicable only where there is a residual debt associated with the asset. Whether that's true here I don't know (and if I did I would not comment!). I just want to make a slightly nerdy point:
If a company acquires some asset, then they have to fund the cost of that asset. If they borrow money to do so, then they need to service the debt, and that can influence what they charge for things. However once the debt is paid they don't need to service it any more, so things are quite different - they need to fund the cost of maintainign and developing the asset, but not the acquisition cost. This is a kind of inverse sunk-cost thing - in both cases the trick is to only look forward and not consider the history (so don't consider paid-off debts but do consider non-paid-off ones).
There's a second related point which is how much you should pay to buy an asset from a bankrupt company, which influences what you then have to charge. If you think the asset is worth having then you should expect to pay for it: if you get it for free, then the receiver isn't doing their job right, and is ripping off the creditors & shareholders of the bankrupt company. So it should not be the case that a company which gets assets from a bankrupt company gets them for free, unless those assets are worthless.
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes: > * David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu> > > I have a strong feeling that more and more people will be migrating > > code from ACL to LispWorks, so it would be nice to make that as easy > > as possible. This is what happens when companies charge an order of > > magnitude of difference for a very similar solution.
> I have a strong feeling that if people form a gang and attack a company, > they will feel very good about themselves for destroying somebody else's > work and livelihood and for scaring off their customers, too. Human > decency will have suffered another blow, the ability of people to make > their own decisions will be curtailed by gang-menality "popular views"
I don't see any 'gang mentality' in David's statement, it's probably relatively close to being a statement of facts. And I assume that Franz knows what they're doing with their current licensing policies, and that they will stay in business even if they lose a few customers to Xanalys. In fact, I think it's also in the interest of Franz that Xanalys is able to keep their lisp business running. The existence of at least two commercial lisp system vendors can be an essential sales point when introducing lisp to one of those many organizations where lisp is either a myth or (recently more common) completely unknown. -- (espen)
> >> > I'd appreciate it if you could re-add the various details at the > >> > beginning of acl-excl.lisp from the Corman Lisp AllegroServe > >> > distribution to the modified version you are distributing with your > >> > port.
> >> Oh yes sorry - I cutted and pasted the functions from one buffer into a > >> new one looking into if I can use it or have to do something different > >> for LW. Be assured that it was no bad intent from me! I will add it ASAP. > >> I don't looked very much into documentation and distribution issues for > >> the things in ACL-COMPAT I only wanted it to be out before the last > >> weekend so the only license issues I assured was that I explicitely used > >> only redistributable and modifyable code from others.
> > Apart from that I would also go the length of *not* bundling software > > that is stand-alone. I.e. a piece of software like the nregexp > > should be 'on-par' with the software that uses it.
> This is done - nregex.lisp is included unmodified with the AServe-distro. > CommonURI is the same as the seperate one - no other modifications. > acl-excl.lisp from Chris was thought as modifiyable component because it is > not so much code that it would be good to distribute it seperately. It is > good as a part of a complete ACL-COMPAT package but not standalone.
> I'm maybe dumb enough to forget including licence-issues and other things > but I'am not *so* dumb that I don't think in terms of modularity. ;-) > Yes the actual ACL-COMPAT looks a bit like chaos but this is only because I > had not the time to clean it up. The hooks are in - they only have to be > used...
> I thought it would be better to share my work then using it here for me > alone. The package is much in the state I would use it for personal needs. > I thought it would help the community more if I deliver it in this state > than waiting any longer.
> Maybe I've to think more and wait longer when providing free software in > future - I always thought it is better to get something not completely > perfect than to get nothing...
I do not agree. I did not mean to be overly critical and just made a suggestion given your posting. Look: had you not posted your software, you would have not received comments about it. If the newer release is better, this is also a result of the comments you received, and everybody benefitted.
Cheers
-- Marco Antoniotti ======================================================== NYU Courant Bioinformatics Group tel. +1 - 212 - 998 3488 719 Broadway 12th Floor fax +1 - 212 - 995 4122 New York, NY 10003, USA http://bioinformatics.cat.nyu.edu "Hello New York! We'll do what we can!" Bill Murray in `Ghostbusters'.
Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> writes: > Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes:
> > Also, companies that go bankrupt are a danger to healthy competition. > > They are able to make their creditors and shareholders pay for their > > losses and bad management and then to start anew with assets that they > > essentially got for free, quite unlike the competition that has not gone > > bankrupt, who have to pay full price for their assets, but quite similar > > to how their customers have wanted their products, for too little money.
> ... how much you should pay to buy > an asset from a bankrupt company, which influences what you then have > to charge. If you think the asset is worth having then you should > expect to pay for it: if you get it for free, then the receiver isn't > doing their job right, and is ripping off the creditors & shareholders > of the bankrupt company. So it should not be the case that a company > which gets assets from a bankrupt company gets them for free, unless > those assets are worthless.
Exactly. The competition that Erik's assuming gets an unfair shake might actually be the one to buy the asset. I'd certainly expect it to bid. Certainly it's a matter of public record that the company goes out of business. The creditors would be fools not to allow a bidding war on anything that had higher market value than it appeared to.
Indeed, in a market where bidding occurs properly, the goods will achieve a fair market price and the only effect of bankruptcy will be to remove control from someone who could not maintain the product and hand it to someone who promises to do better. At least, that's the position I heard espoused by the "sharks" buying up assets after the 1987 US stock market crash, trying to defend their position. They claim they are just keeping the herd of companies healthy. And they make a credible case, I think.
Which is to say that I don't agree with Erik's concern, except to say that sometimes people make wrong judgments and markets while they achieve good value/efficiency statistically sometimes don't at the micro-level. It's at the micro-level where the effects are almost quantum-mechanical, with people making the decisions, not the markets, and people making mistakes. And it's at this level that you can make money. Because, as far as I know, no one has ever made consistent, reliable money betting against the market. One makes money betting against smaller processes that are people-controlled.
Marco Antoniotti wrote: > Jochen Schmidt <j...@dataheaven.de> writes:
>> Marco Antoniotti wrote: >> Maybe I've to think more and wait longer when providing free software in >> future - I always thought it is better to get something not completely >> perfect than to get nothing...
> I do not agree. I did not mean to be overly critical and just made a > suggestion given your posting. Look: had you not posted your > software, you would have not received comments about it. If the newer > release is better, this is also a result of the comments you received, > and everybody benefitted.
Your critic was ok and I hope to get more constructive critics like this. What I said was not because you made suggestions but a question if it would be better to wait instead of publish my free work "to early". IMHO the right thing when doing a open-source project is to distibute as early as possible. Errors, bugs and inconveniences may be found and probably fixed by the comunity that profits from the software. I'm not sure - nobody said anything that would justify such a question but I would be interested what others here think of that. Is it considered harmful to publish half-ready packages that may in the worst case contain such silly errors like missing license info for external ressources? This doesn't mean that this may happen again (I've certainly learned somewhat of this...) but there may be other probably similar errors in future?!?
> Indeed, in a market where bidding occurs properly, the goods will > achieve a fair market price and the only effect of bankruptcy will > be to remove control from someone who could not maintain the product > and hand it to someone who promises to do better. At least, that's > the position I heard espoused by the "sharks" buying up assets after > the 1987 US stock market crash, trying to defend their position. > They claim they are just keeping the herd of companies healthy. And > they make a credible case, I think.
I think the `where bidding occurs properly' bit is pretty crucial. This depends on people knowing what things are worth and on that information being available &c &c. All things that economists like to assume about markets, but they're not always brilliant approximations. And of course there can be other factors, such as a company being willing to buy *all* the assets of a bankrupt company which might be better for the creditors but avoid the issue of what some particular asset is worth. Let alone corruption &c.
> > Indeed, in a market where bidding occurs properly, the goods will > > achieve a fair market price and the only effect of bankruptcy will > > be to remove control from someone who could not maintain the product > > and hand it to someone who promises to do better. At least, that's > > the position I heard espoused by the "sharks" buying up assets after > > the 1987 US stock market crash, trying to defend their position. > > They claim they are just keeping the herd of companies healthy. And > > they make a credible case, I think.
> I think the `where bidding occurs properly' bit is pretty crucial. > This depends on people knowing what things are worth and on that > information being available &c &c. All things that economists like to > assume about markets, but they're not always brilliant approximations. > And of course there can be other factors, such as a company being > willing to buy *all* the assets of a bankrupt company which might be > better for the creditors but avoid the issue of what some particular > asset is worth. Let alone corruption &c.
But this discussion started with Erik saying that Company A would find it unfair that Company C bought Company B's assets after Company B went bankrupt. What I'm saying is that Company C should have no better access to info about Company B's assets than Company A unless either [1] the owner of B's assets is just stupid and doesn't want to sell them for what it's worth (because lack of lknowedge by A will mean C will get them at too low a price) or [2] the owner of B's assets wants to give an advantage to C. In scenario 1, Company A is not unfairly taken advantage of, but rather the owner of Company B's assets is--a fair price has been paid by the sum of the loss to B on what he should have paid + the price C actually paid. In scenario 2, Company A is also not unfairly taken advantage of because B and C are colluding and/or partners, and A might as well think of the pair as combined partners, who have in combination deliberately arranged to go after A, but in any case have paid the price to do so. It is always the case that A could have made an offer that was fair; if A is prevented from doing that, then B, at least, is a fool for not waiting to see what A would offer, or else A was not going to offer enough.
The measure of what the right thing is, in the end, is whether people sign the agreement. It can't fail to work, because their mutual acceptance DEFINES it to have worked. If I offer you a nickel for your house, and you say yes, that's a fair price. If I offer you $10M and you say yes, that's a fair price. If I offer you a nickel and you say no, that's an unfair price. If I offer you $10M and you say no, then that's not a fair price either. It is your free choice, and not the fact that either of knows that an appraiser last week appraised the house at $100K, that determines the true fair price.
> But this discussion started with Erik saying that Company A would > find it unfair that Company C bought Company B's assets after > Company B went bankrupt. What I'm saying is that Company C should > have no better access to info about Company B's assets than Company > A unless either [1] the owner of B's assets is just stupid and > doesn't want to sell them for what it's worth (because lack of > lknowedge by A will mean C will get them at too low a price) or [2] > the owner of B's assets wants to give an advantage to C. In > scenario 1, Company A is not unfairly taken advantage of, but rather > the owner of Company B's assets is--a fair price has been paid by > the sum of the loss to B on what he should have paid + the price C > actually paid. In scenario 2, Company A is also not unfairly taken > advantage of because B and C are colluding and/or partners, and A > might as well think of the pair as combined partners, who have in > combination deliberately arranged to go after A, but in any case > have paid the price to do so. It is always the case that A could > have made an offer that was fair; if A is prevented from doing that, > then B, at least, is a fool for not waiting to see what A would > offer, or else A was not going to offer enough.
I think this is basically right. The bad case is where B (or B's (ex-)directors) and C collude to rip off B's creditors by underselling the asset to C, thus writing-off the cost of the asset. This incidentally is bad for A too. *However* in order for this to happen the receiver (or whatever the US equivalent is - the person who is responsible for disposing of B's assets) has to either be in on the deal, or to be incompetent.
(There are lots of cases where A probably can't or should not offer for the asset - for instance in the case of two suppliers where A is one of them and the other has gone bankrupt, it may well be in A's interest to get someone else to offer to avoid becoming a single-source.)
Anyway, I think we agree, especially since I've now reread your original message with the bit about fluctuations & mistakes, which is more what I was trying to get at.
> If a company acquires some asset, then they have to fund the cost of that > asset. If they borrow money to do so, then they need to service the > debt, and that can influence what they charge for things.
Whether you borrow from your own war chest or an external lender, you still have to ensure that the money is profitable. Money is a perishable good and very quickly deteriorates in value if left alone. (Thanks in part to the very strong drive by governments everywhere to keep the money in circulation and productive through money supply manipulation, interest rates from the central bank or other lender of last resort, and taxation alike.) If you borrow from your other assets, you also limit your ability to do other things with the same money, and there is the risk of loss that is actually much more pronounced if you use your own money. This is why it is made profitable by our governments to be in debt, which ironically makes it more expensive to be in debt than if it were more profitable and a lot easier to build and keep a fortune, but I digress.
> However once the debt is paid they don't need to service it any more, so > things are quite different - they need to fund the cost of maintaining > and developing the asset, but not the acquisition cost.
This is superficially true, but nobody ever has money enough to do all that they want, so in order to ensure that you can take risks and have some of your acquisitions fail, you need to ensure that you recover a lot more from the profitable acquisitions than just its own cost. The whole system of limited liability means that failure is inexpensive and success needs to pay for far more than it would if failure was more expensive, in the hopes that a few huge successes actually can pay for several failures.
> This is a kind of inverse sunk-cost thing - in both cases the trick is to > only look forward and not consider the history (so don't consider > paid-off debts but do consider non-paid-off ones).
This is a good way to look at it if you do not plan to make acquisitions later. There is never _enough_ money to do all you want, and there is never enough available people to do it with. The more money you can make circulate profitably, the more you can do. In other words, you are making sure that you pay less for future acquisitions if you consider the need some time in the future to borrow from yourself. The serviceability requirement does not change appreciably whether you have borrowed them from someone or own them yourself.
> There's a second related point which is how much you should pay to buy an > asset from a bankrupt company, which influences what you then have to > charge. If you think the asset is worth having then you should expect to > pay for it: if you get it for free, then the receiver isn't doing their > job right, and is ripping off the creditors & shareholders of the > bankrupt company. So it should not be the case that a company which gets > assets from a bankrupt company gets them for free, unless those assets > are worthless.
Not quite true. Goods are worth only what others are willing and able to pay for them at the time of the offer. If someone went bankrupt with a certain asset, few lenders will give you a lot of money to acquire it, so the assets of bankrupt companies are often acquired by entitites with available (spare) money. There are also anti-trust regulations to take into account. If the sole surviving competitor buys the remains of its competition, the government will be on your tail and will "encourage" the asset to be sold to a less able buyer, all in the interest of keeping the "competition" and "market" working, i.e., avoiding "monopoly". As a result, you get a _lot_ less for the assets of a bankrupt company than you would have if it were sold off while the company had proved viable. Finance being much about trust and psychology, failures also tend to raise questions about future viability of all components, no matter how complex the relationships that caused the failure. Not to mention the fact that the government is the most aggressive killer in the market, and that a company can go bankrupt for relatively minor tax transgressions that had nothing to do with the viability of its products or management.
>>>>> "chris" == Chris Double <ch...@double.co.nz> writes:
chris> David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu> writes: >> This is fine work, however not everyone necessarily cares about having >> a Lisp-based web server. >> >> I just wanted to point out that for people who generally care about >> ACL compatibility with LispWorks, you can get quite a bit out of this >> code.
chris> It was disappointing to find that at least one of the files appears to chris> be a copy of my own work with my copyright and license information chris> removed.
yeah. I think one of the files was my initial work too, i.e. the sockets, but I never put a copyright on it, since I personally don't give a damn. I think this stuff is easy, and anyone can pretty much do it. Porting is not particularly hard work, imho. Probably not even worth caring about, except for the value to the reader who wants to know where to get the latest updates, etc.
chris> acl-excl.lisp from the distribution contains almost exactly the chris> contents of the acl-excl.lisp I distribute with my Corman Lisp port chris> but with all reference to licence information, copyright, notes, etc chris> removed.
I'm sure the Jochen will make the change (as he probably says in later posts I've havn't gotten to).
chris> So much for the license agreement for my original acl-excl source chris> which stated:
chris> ;;;; 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must chris> ;;;; not be misrepresented as being the original software. chris> ;;;; chris> ;;;; 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source chris> ;;;; distribution.
It's not as if he made money off of it. I don't think he tried to claim that too much of this is his original work.
Anyway, I'd still prefer to use LispWorks's SQL package than USQL. I think that Jochen is unaware of major changes that have gone on in the past year, and so, in case people care:
Pay the extra money for Xanalys's USQL -- especially if you're already using LispWorks.
It's also very well supported, and hopefully soon will support ODBC on Linux.
jochen> nregex.lisp: jochen> Is needed by acl-excl.lisp jochen> nregex.lisp is available standalone - I've forgotten where. jochen> This time I got it from the CormanLisp port of Aserve that uses it too.
jochen> acl-mp.lisp: jochen> Was a try to add the differences in ACLs MP package to LW. Some things
jochen> acl-sockets.lisp: jochen> is a modified version of the one I found at
jochen> acl-excl.lisp jochen> Is a modified version of the one found in the CormanLisp Aserve-port.
jochen> ...
this is a really good post. You have definitely been very resourceful in finding these packages, and not re-inventing the wheel. Great work.
It just goes to show that when you consider what's in things like CLOCC, the Web in general, other packages, Chris's CormanLisp stuff, CL-HTTP, SQL-ODBC, etc., there's enough to really do some damage.
nice.
I must admit, though. I don't like compatibility packages. Using them makes me feel sick. The *only* reason I've ever considered an implementation of Lisp other than LispWorks is that the enterprise runtime licenses are still not cheap, and don't port to enough platforms. CLISP is a nice fix, but there's a lot of lossage when trying to port to CLISP.
marco> Apart from that I would also go the length of *not* bundling marco> software that is stand-alone. I.e. a piece of software like marco> the nregexp should be 'on-par' with the software that uses it.
I'd say screw that!
First off, if nregex is in the public domain, then let him bundle it however he wants. It's like the difference between static and dynamically-linked software. People want to download something and see it work. That's all there is to it. If this is a necessary part of the software and he can ethically add it, then I say go for it. It makes other people's lives easier, which is the whole point of software in the first place.
>>>>> "marco" == Marco Antoniotti <marc...@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
>> Maybe I've to think more and wait longer when providing free >> software in future - I always thought it is better to get >> something not completely perfect than to get nothing...
marco> I do not agree. I did not mean to be overly critical and just marco> made a suggestion given your posting. Look: had you not marco> posted your software, you would have not received comments marco> about it. If the newer release is better, this is also a marco> result of the comments you received, and everybody benefitted.
Marco,
I personally have to disagree with you here. I, for one, don't want to have to download a billion things to make a webserver work. sorry.
I actually think this is an excuse for you to post, and nothing else. If nregex is what it takes to make this package complete, and it's in the public domain, then I don't see what your problem is.
I'm sorry I was out of commission for so long, and missed this post. So I'll reply now, and hope that I can complete the thought that I intended by my earlier post, which read:
> I have a strong feeling that more and more people will be migrating > code from ACL to LispWorks, so it would be nice to make that as easy > as possible. This is what happens when companies charge an order of > magnitude of difference for a very similar solution.
First off, what I say is true. It is my personal experience, which is what I write about, in an effort to make others aware of _my_ experiences, as I am eager to learn of their experiences.
I feel that it was constructive to point out that the package that was recently released -- a port of an ACL's AllegroServe which I've said time after time in probably half a dozen posts is the best Lisp-based web server out there -- contained useful porting information.
In the same post, I also pointed out:
> ACL has a whole suite of tools to help migrate code from LW and LCL > to ACL, and I think that it would be nice if similar tools existed > for LispWorks (not that they don't; I havn't actually looked > recently).
While some may perceive any thriving CL company as beneficial to the Common Lisp community, I do not see things this way. I think that their success and profitability is part of it, but there's a lot more.
Here's an example. I recently pitched Common Lisp as in implementation language for a system. Subsequent research on it from the decision makers led them to conclude that it would not be a viable alternative. That came completely independent of me, and was exactly _not_ what I wanted to convey (especially as I try to use CL for as muc work as possible). Without naming any names, I can openly say that it was a single vendor that was responsible for the bad rap.
This forum is one of the few places where people really gather to discuss issues about Common Lisp. It's also the primary place. Incorrect information is quickly identified here, and I always post under my own name, so people know who I am when I say stuff. I make mistakes, but I don't make stuff up. And I'm not afraid to say it. I say what I feel and what I think. I read follow-ups because I want to know if I'm wrong, where I'm wrong, and how to become a better contributor, and of course to become a better programmer.
It's a free market out there for the Lisp guys. They can put whatever pricetag on their stuff, as far as I'm concerned. But that information will propogate so fast that they won't know what hit them. If they screw someone over, they'll get it. That's the beauty of open media, free press, and the Internet. I don't always agree with the individual outcomes, but on the whole forums such as this improve overall productivity. Vendors find out what developers need and care about, and that is a value they get. Well, I believe it goes beyond features, and so I'm comfortable writing about it.
The last thing I ever want to hear is that a company got burned _because_ they used Common Lisp.
David Bakhash wrote: > yeah. I think one of the files was my initial work too, i.e. the > sockets, but I never put a copyright on it, since I personally don't > give a damn. I think this stuff is easy, and anyone can pretty much > do it. Porting is not particularly hard work, imho. Probably not > even worth caring about, except for the value to the reader who wants > to know where to get the latest updates, etc.
My first private port of the older AServe used a foreign ACL socket implementation. Of the former five Functions in this package I've rewritten 3 and added another 10 - so I count it as a rewrite (as I mentioned somewhere) Particularily to the fact the only remaining 2 functions are two PRINT-OBJECT methods that I by myself would not know how to write it in another way (And as both versions implement the same API they will certainly somewhat similar...) . I found your version on Christopher Brownes Webpage (as I mentioned somewhere) but there was no info in who has written it or what the Licence-Issues was. If I had used the original version and not my rewrite for the new port I would have searched for the author.
> chris> acl-excl.lisp from the distribution contains almost exactly the > chris> contents of the acl-excl.lisp I distribute with my Corman Lisp > port chris> but with all reference to licence information, copyright, > notes, etc chris> removed.
> I'm sure the Jochen will make the change (as he probably says in later > posts I've havn't gotten to).
Already happened ;-)
> Anyway, I'd still prefer to use LispWorks's SQL package than USQL. I > think that Jochen is unaware of major changes that have gone on in the > past year, and so, in case people care:
Major changes in what - Xanalys CommonSQL or OnShore's USQL? I've only written some glue-code to use SQL-ODBC with USQL without the need to change something essentially in any of this packages. So if nobody has broken it's interfaces my glue-code should work.
> Pay the extra money for Xanalys's USQL -- especially if you're > already using LispWorks.
I find USQL I rather nice DB-package and I'm sure it has the capabilities to be the "standard" DB-Package for CommonLisp. It runs proven on CMUCL and LispWorks and should be able to run on ACL, Corman and MCL by using SQL-ODBC as backend.
> It's also very well supported, and hopefully soon will support ODBC on > Linux.
David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu> writes: > It's not as if he made money off of it. I don't think he tried to > claim that too much of this is his original work.
Quite agree David, it was just a copy/paste error on his part and I didn't mean to make too much out of it.
> this is a really good post. You have definitely been very resourceful > in finding these packages, and not re-inventing the wheel. Great > work.
> It just goes to show that when you consider what's in things like > CLOCC, the Web in general, other packages, Chris's CormanLisp stuff, > CL-HTTP, SQL-ODBC, etc., there's enough to really do some damage.
> nice.
> I must admit, though. I don't like compatibility packages. Using > them makes me feel sick. The *only* reason I've ever considered an > implementation of Lisp other than LispWorks is that the enterprise > runtime licenses are still not cheap, and don't port to enough > platforms. CLISP is a nice fix, but there's a lot of lossage when > trying to port to CLISP.
Well, I guess we have to agree to disagree here. I stand at the exact opposite of the spectrum. Compatibility packages are what I care most and pretty much all I do for the CL community. Of course, I will reuse a piece of code when I can and when it is well packaged, but that is another story.
My issue with 'nregexp' (of course it is not my decision to make) is that it may happen that such a package gets upgraded within the context of the bundling one and that the changes are not folded back in the "disentangled" one. Am I paranoid? Probably yes. :) Of course I could always do the work to "port back" the changes, but that is work I want to avoid :)
Cheers
-- Marco Antoniotti ======================================================== NYU Courant Bioinformatics Group tel. +1 - 212 - 998 3488 719 Broadway 12th Floor fax +1 - 212 - 995 4122 New York, NY 10003, USA http://bioinformatics.cat.nyu.edu "Hello New York! We'll do what we can!" Bill Murray in `Ghostbusters'.
Marco Antoniotti <marc...@cs.nyu.edu> writes: > My issue with 'nregexp' (of course it is not my decision to make) is > that it may happen that such a package gets upgraded within the > context of the bundling one and that the changes are not folded back > in the "disentangled" one. Am I paranoid? Probably yes. :) Of > course I could always do the work to "port back" the changes, but > that is work I want to avoid :)
The problem is that I don't think the archive where 'nregexp' is hosted is still active. That is, it doesn't seem to be containing any new stuff or updates. So the disentangled one can never be updated.
> It's a free market out there for the Lisp guys. They can put whatever > pricetag on their stuff, as far as I'm concerned.
If you really meant that, you would not have complained about their prices, you would simply have worked to find or build cheaper solutions. Since you do talk about the pricing, it looks very much like misdirected bitterness. It is simply none of your businsees to argue about anybody else's prices. If they are way too high, it is an excellent opportunity to go in there and make a less expensive product. Of course, that would be a lot easier if some of the competition had not given away their work for free and some of it for too little, but maybe it will dawn on you some day that the hardest thing in business is to charge the right price.
Also, inability to buy something you want is _not_ somebody's fault, not even your own (think about it). You have complained bitterly about a product you cannot purchase for a very long time, as if some _right_ of yours has been abridged or violated. This provides a very strong signal to those who could have provided tools to the Common Lisp community that they should not do so, because they are looking at a customer base that consists primarily of stingy people who do not want to pay (enough) for Common Lisp products to keep the vendors alive. It is the attitudes that you are professing that is killing the Common Lisp market. Because every time you complain, the customer base shrinks a little, just like you told us about your experience. This is _one_ reason never to discuss business matters on the Internet. Another is that _any_ information you find on business matters on the Net must be treated as completely unsubstantiated and basically regarded as malicious rumors, but most people are oblivious to the accountability of information they receive and regard any and all sources of information as "equals".
> But that information will propogate so fast that they won't know what hit > them.
Somebody has to put that information "out there" before it can propogate.
> If they screw someone over, they'll get it.
Some of us -- I begin to realize we are a shrinking minority -- still appreciate the legal system for its ability to arbitrate conflicts such that all parties are properly identified and heard, still want _fairness_ to have a fighting chance, and still appreciate the rational course of acation in the face of disagreements to seek more information and to make impartial conclusions. You, David Bakhash, are not in that minority.
The above one-liner is a strong signal to people who might do business with you that they should be _very_ careful about the way they conduct it. It is also a very strong signal to the community that if someone _feels_ screwed, they will make sure that those who have the "gang up on the alleged bad guy"-quality that was so cherished before civilization happened will join in and beat up however made them feel bad for whatever reason and cause.
> That's the beauty of open media, free press, and the Internet.
How do you correct mistakes once the information has propagated "so fast the victom won't know what hit him"? How do you run after all the people who are of the pre-civilized kind who just love to beat up people they happen not to like for any numbers of reasons and shout "hey, wait, he's not a bad guy after all"?
There are a lot of astonishingly unintelligent people out there who have zero concern for people they have somehoe excluded from humanity, those they do not want to empathize with. This neanderthal mentality that people can be divided into "us" and "them" and you can do whatever you want with "them" as long as you are one of "us" is so amazingly popular in pre-civilized gangs of missing links, pre-humans, idiots and morons who still roam the earth, some of them having figured out how to dress in suits and ties, that it is damn nigh _impossible_ to stop a malicious rumor. Those who have the intelligence and wherewithal to question them (and of course not repeat them) encounter them repeatedly from the most bizarre sources, frequently in contorted versions they recognize only because they know what it was contorted from.
The "beauty" of giving everybody access to the microphone, is that you have to _expect_ that what people say is nuts, but that is not how we deal with people. We generally expect people to be rational and honest and not go about destroying things maliciously, but some do. It is of course an affront to everything human and decent to abuse public fora with falsehoods of any magnitude, but also to spread "information" that is hurtful to a party that cannot defend itself, that cannot be undone, in a process that cannot even be _reversed_ if it turned out to be wrong and unfair.
It annoys me tremendously that you are so selfish and destructive that you completely fail to see the negative aspects of your own behavior, David. The "beauty" of the free press is that we have libel laws to take care of the destructive idiots. If it was such a "beauty", why would we need such laws? Giving every person who wants to speak a voice is the wrong choice. Democracy works when it is representative and guarantees that procedures must be followed if anyone is to be punished or otherwise have his rights taken away. We do not need Internet Lynch mobs, but when it happens, it is the _furthest_ thing from "beauty" I can think of.
> I don't always agree with the individual outcomes, but on the whole > forums such as this improve overall productivity.
Sure, this belief is why people have no concern for fairness. They have some "higher goal" that think is serviced by their behavior. This is why people _also_ object to anything they see as unfairness much more severely than they would to fair treatment, and you, David Bakhash, are grossly unfair to somebody you could simply stop mentioning and working with. It was a mistake for _them_ to try to deal with _you_, but such mistakes are hard to avoid when you run a business that has to be open to all kinds of customers. _You_ are the real perpetrator here, David, because you think it is morally defensible to be unfair to someone in order to improve overall productivity.
> Vendors find out what developers need and care about, and that is a value > they get. Well, I believe it goes beyond features, and so I'm > comfortable writing about it.
The problem is that on the Internet, the saying is updated to read "once burned, a billion times shy". People make mistakes all the time. The important thing is to make it possible to correct them. If somebody do not _want_ to correct them, I say flog them. If they want to, but are not able to because people are prejudicial assholes who fail to update their opinions when the facts they were once based on change, we have a severe problem. This problem is exacerbated by the tendency of people who are already prejudicial assholes to gang up on their victims.
Since you are so goddamn "comfortable" about writing about somebody you happen not to like, even though they seem to have done a lot to try to make you feel happier, why are you not comfortable about other people telling the world about their encounters with you? What we see from you here is grossly unfair. I would not deal with you if you gave me a billion dollars to produce a Common Lisp environment, and sure as hell would never in a lifetime hire you to work on a Common Lisp project.
> The last thing I ever want to hear is that a company got burned _because_ > they used Common Lisp.
That has never been the case. Not not, not in the past, and not in the future. If you stick to this story, however, _you_ are the one who makes it into an issue about Common Lisp and not the real issue, whatever it is -- it could even _be_ overpricing, dwindling markets, uncertain future for the Common Lisp environments because of that, or whatever, but this is _not_ because they used Common Lisp.
Go play in another language if you cannot stop griping, David Bakhash. You are doing the business community in the Common Lisp world a major, major disservice when you think you do anything good with your incessant griping. Just go do something better with your life and your money, will you? Every one of us who still work to make Common Lisp a viable tool in a changing world needs to make sure we survive while doing it. You are a direct threat to that survival, because you are effectively antagonizing the very concept of making money providing Common Lisp environments.
Not everybody are able to provide you with the goods you want at the price you want. Just learn to live with it. The ability to buy whatever you fancy is not a human right that is violated by charging more than you can afford to pay. Leave those who charge more than you can afford alone and pursue other goals. It is not like you do not have any options.
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes: > * David Bakhash <ca...@alum.mit.edu>
> > If they screw someone over, they'll get it.
> The above one-liner is a strong signal to people who might do business > with you that they should be _very_ careful about the way they conduct > it.
Sheesh... talking about character assassinations...
* Erik also notes
> It is of course an affront to everything human and decent to abuse > public fora with falsehoods of any magnitude, but also to spread > "information" that is hurtful to a party that cannot defend > itself, that cannot be undone, in a process that cannot even be > _reversed_ if it turned out to be wrong and unfair.
Right. Well, in the interest of trying to reverse this "information", I'll go on record as having had dealings with Mr. Bakhash, on both a professional and personal level, and have found him ethical to a T.
I for one would do business with him again without hesitation.
Alain Picard
-- It would be difficult to construe Larry Wall, in article this as a feature. <1995May29.062427.3...@netlabs.com>
> Sheesh... talking about character assassinations...
It may in time serve you well to spend the effort to understand that _you_ have chosen to make this a personal issue. I was referring to his his comments and their consequences. You apparently think this is a character assassinations. May I suggest a more _rational_ approach?
If you _think_ you see "character assassinations" when _do_ see an argument about the consequences of someone actions, I must assume you, too, have zero understanding of the need for a legal system, which, if you read anything other than that which inflamed you, was the gist of my message. Your very personal message had nothing to do in a public forum. It would perhaps have counted for something if we were having a character witness day here on USENET. However, despite the urgent need of a few people to think that is what the Net is all about, the _idea_ that is at least _attmpted_ communicated to those who are not so inclined is that by posting personal experiences with a desire to make them look general, you destroy the possibility of dealing with people as individuals.
It is not a character assassination to argue that if you have business with someone and as a consequence find that business a matter of the public record as presented and understood by only one party, it is a very good idea to avoid having business with that someone until and unless you are very, very certain that that someone will refrain from posting hurtful information in public forums. I am so _thrilled_ that you have to prove this point by showing that doing business with _you_ also means that one will see it posted all over the Net, instead of dealing with it in a professional manner.
Since people _do_ make mistakes, and good people work to correct them, some mischievous or malicious person can selectively inform the public of the mistake and withhold the attempt to correct it, just as a mischievous or malicious person might choose not to correct a mistake that hurt someone. Since we are inherently unable to know about such a case and information lives forever on the Internet, otherwise good people who feel they have been screwed, may decide to take revenge and screw people back. The perception that you have been screwed and treated unfairly is highly personal and if you are a professional, you deal with professionally, not by posting your personal experiences in the guise of general conduct.
Some people do not understand the difference betwenn public and private and between personal and professional. In general, such people are a danger to other people, because they will hurt someone's professional sphere, i.e., their livelihood, for personal reasons over which nobody has any control. If you do not understand the difference between personal and professional conduct, and when each is appropriate, the best course of action is actually to shut up until you learn that difference.
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> wrote in message <news:3199641293497286@naggum.net>... > some day that the hardest thing in business is to charge the right price.
In another posting, I stated that no one in this discussion had objected to prices charged by others. (That being different than objecting to the expectation that software should be free.) However, that statement ignored US v Microsoft, where the US Govt objected to Microsoft's 0 price browser.
I note that both anti-trust law AND common consumer reaction provides guidance on pricing relative to competitors.
(1) If you charge more, you're gouging. (2) If you charge the same, you're colluding. (3) If you charge less, you're dumping or unfairly competing.
Speaking of "free", one of the "explanations" is "free as in free speech, not as in free beer" (relating to "freedom to do what you want" as opposed to "0 price".) Yet, if it isn't free as in "free beer", that is, 0 price, it isn't free enough, that is to say, it must be free beer and free speech, but certainly not public domain.
It's important to remember that many of the philosophers in the free software movement thought (and may still think) that software development should be supported by a tax on hardware. This scheme has the potential of solving Kent's problem, so I'm surprised that it hasn't been mentioned.
Interestingly enough, Microsoft implemented an approximation of that scheme. It tries to tax hardware sales and uses that money to provide bundled software that does almost everything that most people want to do. Of course, the money isn't distributed as those philosophers would prefer and they don't get to see/use the code, but they also don't pay the tax either ....
I've thought about what you've said, and have decided the following:
o I should keep personal feelings out of the reality of doing business. o I should avoid the general subject of writing about Franz other than details about their product (basically, avoid discussing their price). o I should get more up-to-date information about Franz, since I havn't called them in a while.
If anyone's listened to what I said this far, then hopefully they'll take the some more suggestions and notes:
o Always consider CL an excellent way to get any job done. o If you're interested in PC-based, Windows/Linux/Unix, Sparc, HP, and/or Irix platforms, then ACL is one of the commercial products that works well on these platforms. o ACL is in many ways the best Lisp, in my opinion. It has a nice editor, good compiler, many useful extensions, is mostly ANSI compliant, is decently well-supported and very well documented. o Note that Franz has contributed to the open source community under the LGPL. o ACL has excellent facilities to port code from other CL implementations. o ACL supports multiprocessing, and in some of their implementations, uses the OS's native threads. o Franz has been around for a long time, and has a good technology track record. They've interfaced their product with:
* an object DB (ObjectStore) * ODBC-enabled relational DBs * Java * foreign libraries * IP communications (the only implementation that I've seen which supports UDP) * Corba
Lastly, there are few enough vendors that people should investigate *all* possibilities before making serious decisions.
Now, as far as working with other people goes...
I value working with people a lot, for both business and personal reasons. Just as my prior posts had intent, I also have equally strong intent to work with lots of people, and solve problems that I'm good for. If, for example, Erik has decided that he would not work with me based on my posts, then this is already a loss, and so I'll quit while I'm already behind. I've noticed that most people actually appreciate information, and are able to account for the situational differences, and so the things I say don't reflect either good or bad on _me_, but rather they offer one person's view that might be useful.
I noticed that this thread quickly became personal, and this is no surprise, considering that part of my original post was personal. So on a personal note, I'll say that the people on this group who I like are the same people who I value. I look here for knowledge, insight, experience, and historical outlook, not to figure out who's nice and who's not, or who's in and who's out. There are lines across which I'm comfortable with seeing our comunity being divided (e.g. the Lisp vs. Scheme line and even the push toward ANSI compliance line) just as I felt strongly to be on one side of a line with respect to XEmacs and CL vs. Guile. But the lines being drawn here are ones which I don't value, and which I don't think are very constructive, and so I will agree with Erik that there's more harm than good if I were to continue.
>>>>> "chris" == Chris Double <ch...@double.co.nz> writes:
chris> The problem is that I don't think the archive where 'nregexp' chris> is hosted is still active. That is, it doesn't seem to be chris> containing any new stuff or updates. So the disentangled one chris> can never be updated.
Right. There's lots of archived code out there that's really no longer maintained, and so if it's within the license agreement to use that code elsewhere, then so be it. It's not a perfect world, and especially here, with the regexp limitations felt in many Lisp implementations, it's useful to link in the small, single-file nregexp program to make your stuff work.
At some point, I'm hoping to see regexp support in LispWorks. I *know* it's already in there somewhere, since their editor supports regular expression searches, so who knows? maybe we'll see it in a future edition of their software. When/if this happens, there probably won't be any need for nregex, just as there's no need for such things in ACL and CLISP.
