Software Sabotage
James....@cmu-cs-vlsi.arpa
now because of it's present distribution mechanism than won't because
of it's price. The total lack of support and maintenance has turned
away many people. I get sent tapes and it takes literally months for
me to return them. That turns off far more people than price.
Universites are unusual cases.
Besides. Prices are made of rubber, they can easily change.
James.
mis@berkeley
Unfortunately, I don't have the self-restraint to ignore his
adolescent flamings about the way the world ought to be, not
to mention his ad hominem attacks on Gosling and his Emacs.
It seems to me reasonable that Gosling do whatever he wants
with his Emacs. He's spent YEARS developing what is almost
product quality code, distributing it generously and widely,
documenting it and answering questions about it, and
nobody can insist he do it in perpetuity.
And someone dedicated needs to do it, or it will become
old and ugly (as will we all, someday).
My understanding is that nobody has put restrictions on what
James could do with their improvements. It seems a fair trade
to me that they could have an Emacs for their use without cost.
The UniPress people (whom I know to be honest and businesslike)
propose to invest time and money into doing the other 5% that takes
so much effort (keeping up with Berkeley for example) AND
maintenance AND support on a number of Unix machines, including
some new ones.
Why shouldn't they realize a return on their investment?
And why shouldn't James get something back for all his time?
Does RMS really think someone should do MAINTENANCE and not be
paid?
(By the way, UniPress is not Microsoft or IBM -- it's Fred Pack and
Mark Krieger who are using their own money. It's very easy for
someone with an ARPA sinecure to criticize...)
The prices don't seem outrageous to me for a multiuser system.
It would be nice if they had lower rates for educational and
multiuser situations. $1000 is kind of high for a single-user
system, but I imagine they'll price it appropriately for the
smaller machines, and in response to competition.
The next time I'd like to hear from RMS is when NIL and "true" Emacs
are as usable for doing real software development as Gosling's
"semi-ersatz" one is now is.
At that point he might have some credibility (though from my
limited exposure to him it seems unlikely -- I remember a
dim sum last year when he accused someone of being "sleazy" simply
because he worked at IBM Yorktown).
Mark Seiden
mis@berkeley
GZ@mit-mc
Date: 21 Apr 83 17:16:08 PST (Thu)
From: dagobah!mis at Berkeley
...
Does RMS really think someone should do MAINTENANCE and not be paid?
...
The next time I'd like to hear from RMS is when NIL and "true" Emacs are as
usable for doing real software development as Gosling's "semi-ersatz" one
is now is. At that point he might have some credibility (though from my
limited exposure to him it seems unlikely ...)
Mark Seiden
Before more people go embarass themselves with ignorant flames like the one
above, there one little fact they should know:
RMS has plenty of credibility. He is the author of the real, original,
that-which-Gosling's-and-all-others-imitate Twenex/ITS Emacs. He maintained it
for much longer than Gosling's emacs has been in existence. His Emacs continues
to thrive and is still available for free to anybody who wants it..