Extrapolating this, we shall probably need a new licence file every week
when Allegro CL 7.0 becomes available.
I understand that they want to be paid for their efforts but then maybe they
should prefer stopping the whole "Trial Edtion Project" at all.
(At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced the
power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB instead of 16MB
as in the previous version and this is very generous indeed.)
Janos Blazi
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Was the ACL5.0.1 Trial Version not limited to 24MB (it is now limited to
16MB - yes 16MB not 18MB like the Win Version)?
I think the need for a 30day license (and a max up to 6 Months!) kills the
use of ACL6 for free deployment of Internetservices promised by
AllegroServe.
Regards,
Jochen Schmidt
j...@dataheaven.de
There are two reasons for the new license scheme: the new Trial has many
more features than the previous Trial and Lite, and to move the expiration
out of the software. The 5.0.1 Trial and Lite expire on November 1, 2000,
and while the license agreement clearly state it, it's not as obvious as it
is with 6.0. Regarding the feature set, we have included much more in 6.0.
The only limitations are time and heap limits, both of which are a little
more restrictive than they were in 5.0.1. We've tried to create the right
balance of features and limitations.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Correct. The Windows 6.0 Trial is limited to 18mb because it includes the
Windows IDE. We tried to make the free heap the same on both.
> I think the need for a 30day license (and a max up to 6 Months!) kills the
> use of ACL6 for free deployment of Internetservices promised by
> AllegroServe.
The license for 6.0 Trial explicitly prevents "free deployment", so I'd have
to agree with your statement.
I don't believe AllegroServe promises you a free Lisp for deployment. Yes,
AllegroServe itself is free.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
> Regards,
> Jochen Schmidt
> j...@dataheaven.de
>
>
Sungwoo
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
And FreeBSD, as well as the usual Linux (x86) and Windows.
> Do you have any plan to port ACL into Mac OS X?
The platform list for 6.0 is already set and does not include Mac OS X,
but it is possible we'd offer it in the future.
> Sungwoo
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
Sounds great!! I'd like to see ACL on OS X in a near the future. BTW, I just
tried install ACL trial into my linuxppc2000. Well~~ it doesn't works. ;(
With the bunzip2, I unziped the acl60_trial, but it didn't make any acl
directory. It just decompressed acl file which say it is excutable (but does
not). (decompressed file size is 76MB.... compressed one is 14MB) I can't do
anything more to install. It just doesn't work. Do you have any idea about
this...? I got the license code as well, and followed instruction, but
doesn't work.
I think it is psychologically difficult to accept this scheme as 'modern
languages' like Python, Perl and Java are free and Microsoft C++ is vitually
free for students (at least is Germany). But of course it is up to you to
run your business as you prefer to; I was simply stunned when I read that
"new licence file every month" busines which I have never seen before.
J.B.
And just _why_ do you object to this? Does anyone have a duty to
make the life of Janos Blazi easy when he does not want to do the
same for anyone else on the whole entire planet, such as by actually
_purchasing_ a development license?
| Extrapolating this, we shall probably need a new licence file every
| week when Allegro CL 7.0 becomes available.
Sure, Franz Inc are totally unreasonable people with a deep-rooted
desire to annoy you by _giving_ you their development environment
for free under certain conditions. Get _real_, Janos Blazi. Drop
the very sick paranoid delusions that something you do not happen to
like is done on purpose to annoy you. That kind of thing is only
true for taxation.
I simply suggest you put yourself out of your misercy by purchasing
a development license. (It mey lower your taxes if you do it right.)
| I understand that they want to be paid for their efforts but then
| maybe they should prefer stopping the whole "Trial Edtion Project"
| at all.
They are trying to reach intelligent people with a good software
project and would like to limit the negative effects of having to
give it to people who turn out to be massively unintelligent frauds
at the same time. This is how marketing works. You never know who
the next great customer might be, but you cannot open your door only
to people who look like they could The One Great Customer and be
very sorely disappointed if they are not. Now, consider the view
that you are behaving just this irrationally towards Franz Inc as a
customer, this time not of any products you have, but of your money.
Most people fail to realize that a trade is bidirectional, and make
all this stinking shit about how only the guy with the money should
get everything. What I wonder is, how did these guys get the money
to begin with? What _did_ they sell in exchange for their money to
get that kind of idiotic reality-deficient attitude towards products?
| (At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced
| the power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB
| instead of 16MB as in the previous version and this is very generous
| indeed.)
Is it because it is _more_ usable that you are whining about all the
"work" you have to do to get a new license file every month?
Sometimes, I wonder if the right approach to marketing _isn't_ to
insult everybody's intelligence and only sell crap products on TV,
because every time you do _not_ insult everybody's intelligence,
_someone_ feels theirs should have been, and proceed to do it.
#:Erik
--
Does anyone remember where I parked Air Force One?
-- George W. Bush
Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
you didn't say):
% bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
a single file.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
>> There are two reasons for the new license scheme: the new Trial has many
>> more features than the previous Trial and Lite, and to move the expiration
>> out of the software. The 5.0.1 Trial and Lite expire on November 1, 2000,
>> and while the license agreement clearly state it, it's not as obvious as
>it
>> is with 6.0. Regarding the feature set, we have included much more in
>6.0.
>> The only limitations are time and heap limits, both of which are a little
>> more restrictive than they were in 5.0.1. We've tried to create the right
>> balance of features and limitations.
>>
>> Kevin Layer
>> Franz Inc.
>
>I think it is psychologically difficult to accept this scheme as 'modern
>languages' like Python, Perl and Java are free and Microsoft C++ is vitually
>free for students (at least is Germany). But of course it is up to you to
>run your business as you prefer to; I was simply stunned when I read that
>"new licence file every month" busines which I have never seen before.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that we should give our
software away for free. You even cite the example of MSVC++ as being
"virtually free". Can you think of a reason why MS can do this? I
can. They have a monopoly market share in the PC operating system
market and as a result are the largest software company on the planet.
Same goes for Sun. They give away Java to sell hardware (and to piss
of Microsoft).
Also, we will give out special license files, with longer than 30 day
expiration, in certain situations. For example, someone teaching a
class and wanting to insure uninterrupted use of the product for the
duration of the class. They need only contact us and ask. We want it
to be easy for people to learn Lisp. That benefits not only us but
the Lisp community.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
> Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
> you didn't say):
>
> % bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
>
> Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
> a single file.
>
No.. I tried first this as instruction said.
% bunzip2
But it doesn't do anything. So I typed like this.
%bunzip2 acl60_trial.bz2
Now it made one single big file. Isn't this a correct way?
>There are two reasons for the new license scheme: the new Trial has many
Besides the Trial and/or Lite version, is there any improvement in licensing
the versions we pay for? In particular, is there any version that would be
feasible to use for development of Windows shareware and freeware, and also
for minor unofficial/unauthorized projects I might do for my work in my spare
time? I have to pay for it out of my own pocket, because my boss has a minor
dislike of Lisp and a major dislike of Franz. If I have to pay a lot of
money out of my own pocket, I want to be able to use it for activities that
have a reasonable chance of adding to my personal income, such as shareware,
etc.
>
>
>> Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
>> you didn't say):
>>
>> % bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
>>
>> Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
>> a single file.
>>
> No.. I tried first this as instruction said.
>
> % bunzip2
The instructions say this:
On UNIX, to install the software, cd to a directory that does
not have an "acl60_trial" directory, and issue the following
command:
% bunzip2 < acl60_trial.bz2 | tar xf -
This will create the "acl60_trial" directory in the directory
the above command is run. If you do not have "bunzip2"
installed on your system, then you can download and use our
version.
> I think it is psychologically difficult to accept this scheme as 'modern
> languages' like Python, Perl and Java are free and Microsoft C++ is vitually
> free for students (at least is Germany). But of course it is up to you to
> run your business as you prefer to; I was simply stunned when I read that
> "new licence file every month" busines which I have never seen before.
Time-limited trial licences are usual in the price region that Franz's
ACL operates in. What is unusual is that Franz is still offering them
publicly, whereas most software vendors in this price range will only
give out trial licences upon request and establishment of a sales
contact. Note that there is a large market for software that is not
at all similar to the shrink-wrapped hobbyist market that operates in
the << $1000 price segment. Try to go to www.sap.com and get a trial
licence for some SAP R/3 module... Or try to get trial versions of
some advanced rendering software...
Regs, Pierre.
--
Pierre R. Mai <pm...@acm.org> http://www.pmsf.de/pmai/
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree,
is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals.
We cause accidents. -- Nathaniel Borenstein
> Sounds to me like you typed something like this (just guessing since
> you didn't say):
>
> % bunzip acl60_trial.bz2
>
> Is that correct? That's the only way I can think of that would create
> a single file.
>
When I copy my email, I lost some text by accident.
Now I found that. So I tried this, and it works.
% bunzip2 < acl60_trial.bz2 | tar xf -
Sorry about to give you mess.
This would need to be answered by our sales department. You can call
and talk with them, or email. 510-548-3600 or sa...@franz.com.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
> You seem to be operating under the assumption that we should give our
> software away for free. You even cite the example of MSVC++ as being
> "virtually free". Can you think of a reason why MS can do this? I
> can. They have a monopoly market share in the PC operating system
> market and as a result are the largest software company on the planet.
> Same goes for Sun. They give away Java to sell hardware (and to piss
> of Microsoft).
I think these are very good points. You really need to distinguish
between companies who (try to) make money selling a product and
companies who may be producing a product to sell something else.
*Many* companies who produce programming language products are using
them to make whatever else they produce more attractive.
Sun are a really good example. They don't just give away Java to sell
hardware, they give away staroffice, and effectively give away Solaris
too. And I suspect their C/C++ offerings are pretty heavily
subsidised. In fact, I suspect that Sun subsidise their workstation
products nowadays as well, since they really exist so people have a
development platform for the enterprise-class hardware where they make
most of their money..
If you look at companies that sell a programming language product to
make money, their products are often not cheap. Some people have
tried to go for the cheap / lots of copies market, like Borland and
people like that, but not too many have succeeded: it's a dangerous
place to be, since if you become too successful microsoft will come
along and produce a `free' equivalent to maintain market share.
--tim
> "Jochen Schmidt" <j...@dataheaven.de> wrote in message
> > Was the ACL5.0.1 Trial Version not limited to 24MB (it is now limited to
> > 16MB - yes 16MB not 18MB like the Win Version)?
>
> Correct. The Windows 6.0 Trial is limited to 18mb because it includes the
> Windows IDE. We tried to make the free heap the same on both.
Yes I thought so - but why not giving e.g. Linux 24 Mb as in the former
release and Windows 26 MB to cope better with the IDE?
> The license for 6.0 Trial explicitly prevents "free deployment", so I'd
> have to agree with your statement.
> I don't believe AllegroServe promises you a free Lisp for deployment.
> Yes, AllegroServe itself is free.
Yes, but that is surely not what I or most other people really wanted.
It's not bad to pay for good software - I would really like to pay you for
giving me a sophisticated Lisp-Environment like ACL. The Porblem I have is,
that there are too few options of _buying_ ACL. The cheapest version of ACL
costs much more than I could pay for it. As a Student I would/could use
Lisp mainly for little Free-/Sharewaretools or University-projects. So
there is no profit on the horizon that would compensate the much money.
So IMHO there are too few options between _trial_ and _full_ releases.
Think of that:
Trial-version (Limitations as now, with 30 Day License) free
Student-Version:
Example Limitations:
Heap up to 32 MB Ram (So no really _big_applications)
No deployment-tools
No commercial development
No support
No IDE
and possibly some more...
Price somewhere around 300-450$
Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
Just an example you know much better what is good for you.
continue the good work and thanks for answering the questions.
Regards
Jochen Schmidt
> Price somewhere around 300-450$
>
>Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
Your argument is seductive. I might have even made it myself, if it
weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
So, it appears that while you would be willing to shell out the money,
very few others are.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
> You seem to be operating under the assumption that we should give our
> software away for free. You even cite the example of MSVC++ as being
> "virtually free".
I don't receive messages from Janos, so let me ask here: is MSVC++
free? Last time I saw it cost hundreds and thousands of dollars for
anything not being a toy version. Not that I would need or want it for
free. Most Java development tools aren't free either.
Robert
The full version is just too expensive for personal use.
We pay full freight for two different versions (Alpha and SPARC)
where I work. I spend most of my working time with one or the other.
It pleased me no end to be able essentially to replicate the excellent
environment I have at work with the Linux trial version. It's
important to note that this was for purely private purposes -- I
use it to run the various CCRMA music programs, and nobody would
claim I'm making any money off *that* or the music that comes out
of it :-) This has contributed quite a bit towards making me a strong
advocate of Lisp in general, and ACL in particular, in the work areas
where I have any influence.
However, with the crescendo of limitations on successive trial versions,
and the cost of the full Linux versions, I've begun to doubt the
longevity of my private projects under ACL, and so have (regretfully)
begun moving to CMUCL. I'd buy an ACL license if it didn't cost so
much, but that's hard to justify for an enterprise that by design
has no commercial ambitions.
It also undermines my support for ACL a little bit, too, especially
when the time is not far away when 64-bit applications will be the
rule in my day job, and there's no guarantee that there will be an
ACL to support them.
Use the Trial version. When the 6 months are up, then ask for an
extension beyond the 6 months.
>It also undermines my support for ACL a little bit, too, especially
>when the time is not far away when 64-bit applications will be the
>rule in my day job, and there's no guarantee that there will be an
>ACL to support them.
Are you asking for a 64-bit lisp? We have one today, on HP-UX 11.00
and Compaq Tru64 4.0 and 5.0.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
> We had a version called the Student Edition,
> that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
Why were you surprised? I'd have been surprised if you sold more than a half
dozen. $500+ is a lot of money for most students to pay for a discretionary
expense. $500 last a long time at IHOP's all you can eat pancake special!
Mike McDonald
mik...@mikemac.com
>Use the Trial version. When the 6 months are up, then ask for an
>extension beyond the 6 months.
That doesn't really address the problem, for several reasons.
And the heap limit is king of crippling, too, with the full
Stanford suite and user-written code loaded.
>Are you asking for a 64-bit lisp? We have one today, on HP-UX 11.00
>and Compaq Tru64 4.0 and 5.0.
We asked for this several years ago and were told we could have it
if we were prepared to underwrite the development :-) UltraSPARC is
the looming requirement.
These are full 64-bit implementations? Not like the
32-bits-in-a-64-bit-word Cray version? Supporting 64-bit unboxed floats?
Frank
>This would need to be answered by our sales department. You can call
No thanks. I'm posting anonymously for a reason. My boss has a hot temper,
and would be annoyed to find that I've been continuing to inquire about Lisp
after being told not to. I would want to keep it under wraps till after my
boss gets fired, which I think might happen soon. Right now I would have to
pay for it out of my own pocket, and I just want some basic information to
know whether it's worth considering. Such as whether I can use it for
shareware development in addition to low-profile after-hours development at
work.
Your sales department should consider the possibility of using the internet
for more efficient marketing. Phone calls are one-on-one which means they
only try to sell to one customer at a time. The internet potentially reaches
many times more prospects than they could ever hope to reach by phone.
Since I'm anonymous, you shouldn't consider this message a request for any
kind of help or consideration, but just a suggestion of how Franz could do a
better job of marketing their product. Someone like me, and there are
thousands of us, could introduce Lisp into a company that never used it
before, and in a few years we could become a major customer. Franz could
therefore have thousands more major customers just by trying to sell to
people like me. Letting us use it for our own minor quasi-commercial
purposes while sneaking it into our companies through the back doors.
I get paid plenty and can afford to pay plenty out of my own pocket. But why
should I, when there are so many alternatives available, and when Franz
doesn't even seem to want customers like me? I can easily use both major
brands of Smalltalk, and also the good brand, without any visible dent in my
budget. I can get Functional Objects Dylan for $399, and do everything I
want with it. I can get Xanalys LispWorks for $799, without ever talking to
a sales person. Where is Franz? Why do they not want me as a customer? Why
are they neglecting a part of their market with so much potential? Why do
they not want Lisp to grow and prosper?
> tried install ACL trial into my linuxppc2000. Well~~ it doesn't
> works. ;( With the bunzip2, I unziped the acl60_trial, but it
> didn't make any acl directory. It just decompressed acl file
> which say it is excutable (but does not). (decompressed file size
> is 76MB.... compressed one is 14MB) I can't do anything more to
> install. It just doesn't work.
For future reference in similar situations:
Try The "file" Command
[bruce@k7]$ file foo.bz2
foo.bz2: bzip2 compressed data, block size = 900k
[bruce@k7]$ bunzip2 foo.bz2
[bruce@k7]$ file foo
foo: GNU tar archive
[bruce@k7]$
Like the above example, your single file is very likely to be a "tar"
archive. "file" will tell you. It knows the teltale signs of thousands
of file formats, from unix, Windows and the Mac.
-- Bruce
>>Are you asking for a 64-bit lisp? We have one today, on HP-UX 11.00
>>and Compaq Tru64 4.0 and 5.0.
>
>We asked for this several years ago and were told we could have it
>if we were prepared to underwrite the development :-) UltraSPARC is
>the looming requirement.
>
>These are full 64-bit implementations? Not like the
>32-bits-in-a-64-bit-word Cray version? Supporting 64-bit unboxed floats?
Yes. Correct. I don't know (the expert on this is on vacation at the
moment).
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
>On Sun, 29 Oct 2000 13:57:03 -0800, Kevin Layer <la...@known.net> wrote:
>
>>This would need to be answered by our sales department. You can call
>
>No thanks. I'm posting anonymously for a reason. My boss has a hot temper,
>and would be annoyed to find that I've been continuing to inquire about Lisp
>after being told not to. I would want to keep it under wraps till after my
>boss gets fired, which I think might happen soon. Right now I would have to
>pay for it out of my own pocket, and I just want some basic information to
>know whether it's worth considering. Such as whether I can use it for
>shareware development in addition to low-profile after-hours development at
>work.
>
>Your sales department should consider the possibility of using the internet
>for more efficient marketing. Phone calls are one-on-one which means they
>only try to sell to one customer at a time. The internet potentially reaches
>many times more prospects than they could ever hope to reach by phone.
You carefully edited out my assertion that you could email us. You
can even use an anonymous remailer if you don't want to reveal your
email address.
>Since I'm anonymous, you shouldn't consider this message a request for any
>kind of help or consideration, but just a suggestion of how Franz could do a
>better job of marketing their product. Someone like me, and there are
>thousands of us, could introduce Lisp into a company that never used it
>before, and in a few years we could become a major customer. Franz could
>therefore have thousands more major customers just by trying to sell to
>people like me. Letting us use it for our own minor quasi-commercial
>purposes while sneaking it into our companies through the back doors.
We do evaluations into commercial companies all the time. We work
with companies all the time to figure out how to work together. For
someone so critical of us, you seem to know little. Perhaps that's
why you're being anonymous.
>I get paid plenty and can afford to pay plenty out of my own pocket. But why
>should I, when there are so many alternatives available, and when Franz
>doesn't even seem to want customers like me? I can easily use both major
>brands of Smalltalk, and also the good brand, without any visible dent in my
>budget. I can get Functional Objects Dylan for $399, and do everything I
>want with it. I can get Xanalys LispWorks for $799, without ever talking to
>a sales person. Where is Franz? Why do they not want me as a customer? Why
>are they neglecting a part of their market with so much potential? Why do
>they not want Lisp to grow and prosper?
As I said, we used to have a product below the price point of $799.
While **you** say would buy it, few did.
Kevin Layer
Franz Inc.
> On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 01:10:30 +0100, Jochen Schmidt <j...@dataheaven.de>
> wrote:
>
> > Price somewhere around 300-450$
> >
> >Professional-Version and others as you offer it now.
>
> Your argument is seductive. I might have even made it myself, if it
> weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
> that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> higher $499. We sold a very few copies.
May I ask if it was just a offer for students? If yes I understand why
you did not sell much. I contacted Franz a year or so ago to buy a
version. But I was just lead to the professional and enterprise
edition. Now to that time Lispworks was simular expensive but with the
Xanalys this changed.
Regards
Friedrich
--
for e-mail reply remove all after .com
I hope it occurs to you some day that Allegro CL is not a
mass-market product and that you grasp the ramifications of that
distinction from Python, Perl, Java and C++.
| But of course it is up to you to run your business as you prefer to;
| I was simply stunned when I read that "new licence file every month"
| busines which I have never seen before.
And you still think you're smack dab in the middle of the people who
are the likely target audience of their efforts? As far as I can
see from your past and present contributions here, you never intend
to purchase a license from them, anyway. Is it really honest of you
to complain that what you get for free is not free enough?
How many customers in your price range do you think Franz Inc would
need to be able to do your bidding? I think 100,000 would be a fair
suggestion. Do you think there _are_ that many Common Lisp users
just waiting for a mass-market price? I know there aren't.
If Franz Inc's expensive (for them) and therefore generous Trial
Edition project means they get 100 new staying customers, while
making it possible for perhaps many more people to try it out, they
have made a huge win, both for themselves _and_ for Common Lisp.
That Janos Blazi, who would never become a customer, anyway, whines
and whimpers is a loss, both for Franz Inc _and_ for Common Lisp.
It's no secret that I think you're the stupidest person who has ever
remained a recurring phenomenon on comp.lang.lisp, but I still want
you to consider what you are doing to hurt the language you want to
use by your useless whining and whimpering against the free offering
of a product you never intend to purchase, anyway.
It is psychologically difficult to accept that you keep posting. I
suggest you stop until you have become more used to exert the effort
required to determine whether your actions are destructive or not.
Well, if you stay away from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, junk food, soft
drinks, and "unexpected" pregnancies and actually spend your time
and money on studying, $500 is _not_ a lot of money to invest in
your future. Not that asceticism is necessarily a virtue (note that
I did not exclude the #1 favorite extracurricular activity, only its
most undesirable result :), but all the "poor" students I know spent
a _lot_ more money on such stupid things than anyone would recommend
so I have very little sympathy for the plight of "poor" students,
just like I never give a penny to beggars who smoke.
But it might be fun to see if a special discount for Student Edition
Lispers at IHOP would help sales.
Seriously, I think it would help if students could pay for their
licenses over several years, say three, instead of all of it in one
fell swoop. It would mean a much lower entry fee and probably a
more stable relationship with the student. With maintenance fees at
25%, three years of $250 each would match one year of $500 and two
years of $125. Would our IHOP all-you-can-eat-special student buy
that? :)
Erik> Seriously, I think it would help if students could pay for
Erik> their licenses over several years, say three, instead of all
Erik> of it in one fell swoop. It would mean a much lower entry
Erik> fee and probably a more stable relationship with the
Erik> student. With maintenance fees at 25%, three years of $250
Erik> each would match one year of $500 and two years of $125.
Erik> Would our IHOP all-you-can-eat-special student buy that? :)
There is precedent for this. Where I went to college, students were
required to buy laptops. The price of the laptop (including software
such as Mathematica and Visual Studio) was included in the student's
tuition and was paid over a four-year period. I've heard of programs
(IIRC, a dental program at NYC) that have books and other research
material on CD-ROM, and again, the licensing fees are paid on the same
schedule as tuition.
Unfortunately, the barriers to entry are NOT monetary, at least for
students (or rather, no different than the barriers to paying for
college in the first place). I've yet to hear of a computer science
department or university computing center that doesn't provide
students with at least one compiler. So we're back to the problem of
convincing schools that (1) they should use Common Lisp at all and (2)
they should pay for a commercial-grade environment instead of making
do with GNU CL (and only in Intro to AI).
One of the reasons it is difficult to get quality/novel programming
environments into college is because of idiots like me. When I was a
freshman, I thought that programming was just knowing a particular
language well, like C++ (actually, Objective-C in my case).
Fortunately, I had teachers that beat into my head that one uses the
proper tool for the job, be that C, Lisp, or whatever. But I don't
think every teacher in the world thinks that way, and certainly there
is a lot of demand for C++ or Java expertise.
Now, if one is not a student, then, I think, the price tags associated
with the commercial Lisps can be a bit daunting. Redistribution
rights, especially in the case of software that could be considered a
competing product, seem to be very expensive.
--
"Remember - if all you have is an axe, every problem looks like hours of fun."
-- Frossie in the monastery
> If you look at companies that sell a programming language product to
> make money, their products are often not cheap. Some people have
> tried to go for the cheap / lots of copies market, like Borland and
> people like that, but not too many have succeeded: it's a dangerous
> place to be, since if you become too successful microsoft will come
> along and produce a `free' equivalent to maintain market share.
Indeed Borland/Inprise itself has repositioned itself so as to sell
mostly into the Enterprise markets: While you can still get the
Foundation or Personal editions of their products for little to no
money, nearly all serious editions are now in the $1000 price range
and above.
IMHO Borland and others in this area have indeed felt the crunch that
has been the result of all the free/subsidised offerings out there.
> Seriously, I think it would help if students could pay for their
> licenses over several years, say three, instead of all of it in one
> fell swoop. It would mean a much lower entry fee and probably a
> more stable relationship with the student. With maintenance fees at
> 25%, three years of $250 each would match one year of $500 and two
> years of $125. Would our IHOP all-you-can-eat-special student buy
> that? :)
>
> #:Erik
Not unless there was direct requirement to use Lisp for classes over that
same time period. I'm afraid most US college students don't really go to
college for an education (IMO). That's sometimes a lucky biproduct. For most,
it's a social/maturing experience that's the primary draw. Or the lure of a
high paying job if they can manage not ot flunk out.
Inorder to increase the demand for Lisp, colleges would have to decide
teaching how to think was more important than the relevancy of teaching the
last fad language. But to be fair to the colleges, a lot of that pressure
comes from industry.
"We've just invented this new language last week that's going to solve
all of the world's problems. But we need people with at least four years of
experience with it. Why isn't our local college providing the graduates with
what idustry needs? If they don't, we'll lose jobs to <insert your favorite
boogeyman state name here>!"
I don't know how to turn the tide so that critical thinking and problem
solving are valued attributes of members of a work force. I guess drones are
just easier to produce and control.
Mike McDonald
mik...@mikemac.com
| May I ask if it was just a offer for students? If yes I understand why
| you did not sell much. I contacted Franz a year or so ago to buy a
| version. But I was just lead to the professional and enterprise
| edition. Now to that time Lispworks was simular expensive but with the
| Xanalys this changed.
Last I heard deja had stopped inserting product links in messages.
Well, apparently they haven't. The words enterprise edition in
Friedrich's article are linked to some page about the Visual Basic
Enterprise Edition if you read it on deja:
I have also heard that deja said they'd honor a
X-No-Productlinks: yes
header (or in the first line of the article), so I inserted one in
this post to see if this is true.
Anyway I think this is most annoying and I will also tell them my
opinion about that. I wouldn't like links inserted in my posts that
seem as if I had inserted them, especially not to things like Visual
Basic which I don't use and don't like.
Boris (ranting and longing for the times when deja was still dejanews,
still had the old articles prior to May 1999 and didn't do annoying
things like inserting links in people's articles)
--
bo...@uncommon-sense.net - <http://www.uncommon-sense.net/>
Statistics means never having to say you're certain.
> As the aforementioned new edition has just become available I have taken a
> first look and noticed that now the user of this edition needs a new licence
> file every month.
>
> Extrapolating this, we shall probably need a new licence file every week
> when Allegro CL 7.0 becomes available.
>
> I understand that they want to be paid for their efforts but then maybe they
> should prefer stopping the whole "Trial Edtion Project" at all.
>
> (At the same time I must admit that they have significantly enhanced the
> power of the product: Now the heap size is limited to 18MB instead of 16MB
> as in the previous version and this is very generous indeed.)
>
Sigh. I don't normally stick my nose into stuff like this, but now I feel
compelled.
Folks that share Mr. Blazi's opinions should keep the "big picture" in mind. I
probably needn't mention that Franz is exclusively a _software_ company whose
high-quality product is not quite a commodity (my hope is that Lisp one day
soon becomes ubiquitous, because I am sick to death of the current "state of
the art"). Franz _is_ Lisp, in the sense that Lisp and Lisp-related sales are
the sole revenue of the company (sorry, I'm presuming an awful lot but I think
this is correct). I for one want a healthy Franz (and Xanalys) for the sake of
Lisp.
Now, let me speak to policy. As others have said on this topic, I find it
difficult to understand the complaints regarding the new licensing scheme.
Franz has made the license renewal process trivial (run a program, get a
license), and if one has special needs one picks up the phone and asks. My
company could be a poster child for Franz' willingness to promote Lisp through
cooperation; for 22 months I have been evangelizing Lisp, pushing against the
Java propaganda machine and producing high-quality, product-oriented prototypes
in very short amounts of time; all in an effort to get some folks here to think
"out of the box" and see how significantly Lisp could help us. The battle
against myopia continues, but Franz has steadfastly sent numerous eval copies
of ACL (and ORBLink), information on industry uses of Lisp, etc. etc. Indeed,
both Franz and Xanalys have been very supportive of my efforts. Do they have a
vested, monetary interest in my success? Of course! So what? The bigger picture
is the potential proliferation of Lisp and a move to more intelligent sofware
engineering.
And so.
Regards,
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
David E. Young
Fujitsu Network Communications "The fact that ... we still
(david...@fnc.fujitsu.com) live well cannot ease the pain of
feeling that we no longer live nobly."
-- John Updike
"Programming should be fun,
programs should be beautiful"
-- P. Graham
> I don't receive messages from Janos, so let me ask here: is MSVC++
> free? Last time I saw it cost hundreds and thousands of dollars for
> anything not being a toy version. Not that I would need or want it for
A few years ago Microsoft--at least in Italy--offered a VC++ 4.0 and VB 4.0
(professional editions for both) bundle to students for the equivalent of
about 75$.
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/
> weren't for some facts. We had a version called the Student Edition,
> that was more powerful that you suggest, with a price just a tad
> higher $499. We sold a very few copies. We were quite surprised.
Just out of curiosity, what were the main features and limitations of that
Student Edition? For which operating systems was it available?
--
Glauber Ribeiro
thegl...@my-deja.com http://www.myvehiclehistoryreport.com
"Opinions stated are my own and not representative of Experian"
Or a likely possibility of landing a internship where Lisp would
prove helpful.
Use of Lisp in multiple classes is also a issue when it comes to
budgeting for site license(s). It is difficult to pay for a site
license out of the budget for a single class or several classes of
small class sizes.
> Inorder to increase the demand for Lisp, colleges would have to decide
> teaching how to think was more important than the relevancy of teaching the
> last fad language. But to be fair to the colleges, a lot of that pressure
> comes from industry.
It isn't always "fad" languages. Many employers pound the table for
"C-like" programming skills.
The other catch-22 is that unless you are on many employer's "A list"
of recruiting locations then you can also have trouble attracting
the top students. At that point you're caught in a cycle.
So the pressure comes from both directions. Unfortunately while you
expect somewhat unenlighted objectives from the student side, it
about as equally unenlighted from employer side also.
> I don't know how to turn the tide so that critical thinking and problem
> solving are valued attributes of members of a work force. I guess drones are
> just easier to produce and control.
Industry (especially high tech in the US) wants people who were
trained on somebody else's dollar. So many want the
students to have a year or more of mainstream language XX (i.e.,
C, Java, etc.) under their belt. Preferabally using the development
tools that they aready use in house. ( well probably not the source
control, but as much a possible.) Not that knowledge of tool use is
unimportant. However, I suspect more newcomers with step on
domain misunderstanding "landmines" than on incorrectly use whatever
tool the company has standarised upon.
Cynically, It isn't "drones" but replacable industrial "cogs" that
they want. Less cynically, it is drive to fill immediate (your company's
stock price is only as good as its last quarter) objectives rather than
a "long term acquistion". For Silicon Valley where some folks change
jobs about as often as the seasons.... why look for long term skills?
Lyman
Yeah that would be handy.... kind of a bummer when your sitting on a
box with >4 GB of RAM in it and you bump into the 2 GB user space
limit.
> 32-bits-in-a-64-bit-word Cray version? Supporting 64-bit unboxed floats?
I suspect that's 64-bit floats where declarations/optimizations allow.
:-)
Lyman
That's fine with me. I don't have to care about every college
student to be able to reach but a few of them. I leave such caring
about everybody to brilliant minds like that of George W. Bush,
which has me wondering what the GOP _rejects_ were like. Christ.
| Inorder to increase the demand for Lisp, colleges would have to
| decide teaching how to think was more important than the relevancy
| of teaching the last fad language.
Or they could at the very least ensure that those who attend them
are not actively discouraged if they happen to want an education.
| I don't know how to turn the tide so that critical thinking and
| problem solving are valued attributes of members of a work force.
I do: Quit thinking that you're _ever_ dealing with masses. If you
cannot bring yourself to be satisified that you reach a brain, but
have to be disappointed because you can't change a culture, give up
before you hurt every brain you could have reached and the culture
gets you.
| I guess drones are just easier to produce and control.
The whole concept of educating lots of _very_ different children at
the same pace in an "industrial" setting that forced everybody to be
exposed to the same tasks at the same time even though there is very
solid evidence that this hurts both the weak and the strong children
is a product of the industrial revolution, when factories wanted
lots of people who could obey a central authority figure (teacher,
floor manager, same shit). Drones are easier to produce in such a
system because that is the express purpose, and it has never even
_tried_ anything else. That's why the drones must be _ignored_.
When the time comes, they will do what those you taught tell them.
What's the difference between the above and Corman Lisp, CLISP, and/or
CMUCL(**)? Pragmatically, from a student on a limited budget, I don't
see much of a difference. All of the above will likely be up to the
task of doing the vast majority of homework assignments.
Since the alternatives are free (gratis), in relation $300-450 is
approxiamately infinately more expensive. It isn't just
a question of disposable income. It is also a matter of relative
pricing for relatively equivalent "products".
[ NOTE: as a student/hobbyist it is highly likely that you have
more time than money. So more money for tool packaging and
optimizations can be traded off for time. As a non-commerical
enterprise money is not the primary dominating factor. ]
No tools, no support (besides comp.lang.lisp of course :-) ) , no
IDE (although I imagine the intended meaning there is no GUI builder
as oppose to the tool having no GUI "face" ).
So way I see it. Are students/hobbyists willing to pay $300-450 dollars
for a GUI face on a lisp? I suspect the answer in generally
is no. I was a TA for large class that used Common Lisp for many
years. The students largely selected whatever was minimally acceptable
for the machine upon they were going to they work .
Maybe $99.00 (i.e., Metrowerks/Microsoft price for their "educational"
'C' products). The student version of MCL is about half $300 and it
is the REAL thing! (OK you don't get redistribution rights and you
have to validate you're a student and MCL has economic questions. )
IMHO, this trial edition pricing is more marketing than economics.
Franz selling Porches (from a US perspective... I don't know
how they are priced in Europe). They're a boutique selling
above average expensive stuff. It is tough to make that sell for a
boatload of Benjamins when there is a "econobox" discount
car over in the cover of the showroom.
There is also a need to segment those who flip to the cheaper product
and bypass the non-commerical restrictions when they clearly have
commerical enterprise in mind. ( while other language
compiler vendors have the similar problems their base population is
larger).
(**) I don't inlcude GCL. When I was a head TA I didn't recommend
GCL since
i. it is increasing divergent with the ANSI standard in relation
to the alternatives.
ii. it had the annoying "feature" of accepting non standard
(thereby
nonportable) syntax. (e.g., silently accepting excess right
parens. )
Lyman
A few years ago at US Higher Education Sites Microsoft as selling the
basic VC++ 5.0 (or 6.0) along with a "bonus" Windows NT 4.0. for about
$99. [ I bet student's exposure Windows NT went up after that. I know
mine did. That was cheaper than buying the educational priced NT 4.0
by itself.]
While Microsoft has the funds to "buy" mindshare the commerical
lisp vendors don't. At least not to that broadbase extent.
This is a highly sucessful marketing tool practiced
but many industrial companies. Put you products in front of the students
"at cost" and when they go off to there worksplaces that's all they are
trained upon. Therefore, that's what their employers will buy. Witness
Sun's dominance in educational locations and "dot coms" predilection
for the same.
For the compiler tools I suspect $60-99 is about "at cost" when you
factor in the packaging, middlemen, and miscellaneous expenses.
Lyman
I have one more question....
If you offer ACL on OS X, then will it have GUI tools same as windows or not?
Sungwoo
> Jochen Schmidt wrote:
> ....
> > Student-Version:
> > Example Limitations:
> > Heap up to 32 MB Ram (So no really _big_applications)
> > No deployment-tools
> > No commercial development
> > No support
> > No IDE
> > and possibly some more...
> >
> > Price somewhere around 300-450$
>
> What's the difference between the above and Corman Lisp, CLISP, and/or
> CMUCL(**)? Pragmatically, from a student on a limited budget, I don't
> see much of a difference. All of the above will likely be up to the
> task of doing the vast majority of homework assignments.
CMUCL is nice and fast, but only runs on UN*X-boxes. I mainly use UN*X-boxes
but also want to run my applications and as much other platforms as I can.
CLISP is also nice and highly portable, but lacks a native compiler and
much of the CLOS-functionality of ACL or LispWorks. (Yes you can use PCL
but ithere are worlds between te commercial CLOS+MOP and the free (PCL)
ones.
Through the high price of Lisp-Environments I'am "forced" to use mainly
CLISP and CMUCL for my work ("forced" is exaggerated as I like this
programs really!)
Regards,
Jochen Schmidt