Appsoft dies...
John Kheit
le -- some good might as well come of this bleakness :)
I wonder how the other bigger boy software vendors for NeXT are doing... Just by the feel of things you would think that Stone is doing ok, Rightbrain is so so, and the rest are in a tough spot. The one Im most worried about is Virtuoso...It is the BEST of its breed on any platform and I sure as heck hope they keep up support at least for a good while. It just seems to early to stop trying on NS until we see how many REAL 2500 buck copies of NSI were sold this year. At the very least appsoft should con
tinue selling NS products while doing less support and development.
Later, John
Eric Scott Boltz
I'm afraid I don't see Appsoft as a big loss for the NeXTSTEP community.
First, they had only one decent product: Image.
Image was slow and overpriced.
Draw! - oooo I could go on and on about this one! Bugs bugs bugs!
WriteNow - they were "working" on 3.0 for how many years?
Solution - yeah right!
You want to know why Appsoft is gone?
Bad Management.
This is a company that two months ago was taking out full page, color ads
for Solution - a product that didn't exist!
Nope, Appsoft isn't anything too worry about. We still have plenty of good,
well-managed developers out there.
Eric
(IMHO of course)
Scott Anguish
> Man I cant believe that Appsoft has just turned and died!!!
> (check the announcement group). They were so well backed that
> I thought they would have some staying power, but doesnt look
> good. I know they had some problems with Draw, but wasn't Image
> doing well for them. They say they are not going under, but are
> NOT going to support NS anymore. This is truely some bad news
> for us all. I thought they would at least give it a full year
> with NSi out. BTW are the products they are selling off NSi co
>
They were well backed, but this has been building for a while with
Appsoft. Much of what has happened could have been avoided, and
unfortunately I see RightBrain making the same mistakes as Appsoft
did. Advertising products that you can't buy today! I hope that
doesn't happen to them.
The trouble with Draw didn't help. If solution had gotten finished
cleaned up and released, then I think we could have seen them turn
around.
Image is a good program, and hopefully someone will pick it up.
> I wonder how the other bigger boy software vendors for NeXT are
> doing... Just by the feel of things you would think that Stone
> is doing ok, Rightbrain is so so, and the rest are in a tough
> spot.
Well who are the big boys? Rightbrain, Stone, Athena, Lighthouse
and Appsoft come to mind as the main horizontal market players.
Lighthouse has not been active on the Net for a long time. That
means nothing.
Andrew seems to have a good business head as well as being an excellent
application engineer, and they are not making the mistake of trying
to advertise software that is not written yet!
>The one Im most worried about is Virtuoso...It is the BEST
> of its breed on any platform and I sure as heck hope they keep
> up support at least for a good while.
Altsys has alot of support on the Mac side, and so that could certainly
keep things afloat for a while if it was to become necessary. The
question is whether the product would continue to grow or not. As long
as it is supported, I don't see a reason to worry.
Software Ventures - (Microphone) is in the same boat, big company with
products on other platforms, but the future there is uncertain.
Hopefully with the new serial drivers out they will get the NS/I
version shipping and can pick up some market share.
Actually the company I am really worried about is Alembic. They handle
distribution for alot, perhaps too much, of the foreign written
software. If there was to be a problem there that could be serious.
To be CLEAR I know very little about Alembic, or how they are doing,
and perhaps that is the reason I am a little concerned.
>It just seems to early to
> stop trying on NS until we see how many REAL 2500 buck copies of
> NSI were sold this year. At the very least appsoft shou
> tinue selling NS products while doing less support and development.
Appsoft and Randy did what they had to do. Randy has to answer to
the vulture capitalists, so there might have been no real choice there.
In order to compete at this point Draw and WriteNow would have to be
totally re-written, and that would take alot of cash.
--
- Scott Anguish -
sang...@digifix.com (NextMail)
next-a...@digifix.com (comp.sys.next.announce submissions)
Lusty Wench
Scott Anguish <sang...@digifix.com> wrote:
>
> Well who are the big boys? Rightbrain, Stone, Athena, Lighthouse
> and Appsoft come to mind as the main horizontal market players.
Am I the only one who tried to buy some fonts from Rightbrain
recently? They aren't selling fonts any more. I was told to
complain to NeXT if I didn't like it.
Lusty
Robert Nicholson
>
>I'm afraid I don't see Appsoft as a big loss for the NeXTSTEP community.
>
This sounds very "TAKE TAKE TAKE" to me.
Granted Appsoft wasn't a major player in the NeXTSTEP community
however, lets show a bit of sympathy for these guys. I don't know
Randy what so ever and I've never purchased one of his products (I
did buy my old cube from P.Karnig though)
Sure Appsoft didn't really do much but how did NeXTWORLD benefit from
their Advertising. I'm sure we could come up with a few significant
contributions if we had to. Regardless of the developer it's always
a shame to see one having to make such decisions. I'm sure they
won't be the last so lets keep that in mind shall we.
c...@ardi.com
> They were well backed, but this has been building for a while with
> Appsoft. Much of what has happened could have been avoided, and
> unfortunately I see RightBrain making the same mistakes as Appsoft
> did. Advertising products that you can't buy today! I hope that
> doesn't happen to them.
What may not be known is that the lead time for placing ads is very
long. Not only do you have to have the ad in by the cut-off date, you
have to begin working on the ad and planning what will be in the ad,
well before then just so your ad can look as spiff as possible.
We, ARDI, already had two full-page NeXTWORLD ads in the pipeline when
the bad news hit in February (considering our product, it was *very*
bad news for us). It is a very tough game to play; having software
ready to ship but no advertising can be as bad or worse than having an
ad but not having the product immediately available.
In all honesty, we didn't get sufficient returns from our ads to even
pay IDG on time. It is only through NeXTWORLD's accounts payable
department's good graces that we have been able to squeak by while
working our tails of on our synthetic CPU for Executor/NEXTSTEP/Intel
and Executor/DOS.
The twists and turns of NeXT have been hard enough for the end user to
follow. I do believe that the ISV's are the last people on the chain
in this glorified game of crack-the-whip. If you remember the game
from your childhood, it's the people on the tail that come flying off
uncontrollably at unpredictable times. As Dan Ruby points out in the
October NeXTWORLD, the game may be changing, but as John Perry Barlow
points out in the same issue, the game may be less fun.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
[Bias alert: ARDI is much smaller now than it used to be, but with the
imminent eminent release of Executor/DOS, we're prepared
to ride out bigger storms than ever before. Flying model
helicopters in Hurricane Gloria was a blast!]
Lorin Rivers III
Don't worry about Virtuoso! Things are going well here. Of course, if
you really want to do your part, buy one!
--
Lorin Rivers Lorin_...@altsys.com
NEXTSTEP Sales Manager 214.680.2518
269 W. Renner Parkway NeXT Mail Expected
Richardson, Texas 75080 I said it, not my boss
Scott Anguish
> In article <287j89$d...@digifix.digifix.com> sang...@digifix.com writes:
>
> > They were well backed, but this has been building for a while with
> > Appsoft. Much of what has happened could have been avoided, and
> > unfortunately I see RightBrain making the same mistakes as Appsoft
> > did. Advertising products that you can't buy today! I hope that
> > doesn't happen to them.
>
> What may not be known is that the lead time for placing ads is very
> long. Not only do you have to have the ad in by the cut-off date, you
> have to begin working on the ad and planning what will be in the ad,
> well before then just so your ad can look as spiff as possible.
Very true, but the advertised Perspective, which was in beta more than
a year ago and isn't a product, the Mail.app that never was, and to a lesser
degree Solution.
Those are not the result of lead time problems. Those are just
mistakes.
I've known Randy Adams since before NeXT, and he has always been a
standup guy. Even when we had competing products in the Mac arena he was
always friendly, and I'm sure that on more than one occasion we chatted about
technical stuff.
Its sad to see them go, but it can't be attributed to the dropping of
hardware alone.
>
> [Bias alert: ARDI is much smaller now than it used to be, but with the
> imminent eminent release of Executor/DOS, we're prepared
> to ride out bigger storms than ever before. Flying model
> helicopters in Hurricane Gloria was a blast!]
Flying model heli's on a CALM day is a blast! Flying model heli's in a
Hurricane is nuts! :-)
John Kheit
>tinue selling NS products while doing less support and development.
Sometimes my stupidity knows no bounds... At anyrate, sometimes things get a little dark before we can hope to be coddled in a warmer light. I wish Appsoft good fortunes in all their endevors...I think they have been real good people and hope they find what they need to heal themselves. So to all the people at Appsoft, be well and good luck.
Later, John
Andrew Stone
> John Kheit writes
> > Man I cant believe that Appsoft has just turned and died!!!
> > (check the announcement group).
> > I wonder how the other bigger boy software vendors for NeXT are
> > doing... Just by the feel of things you would think that Stone
> > is doing ok, Rightbrain is so so, and the rest are in a tough
> > spot.
>
> Well who are the big boys? Rightbrain, Stone, Athena, Lighthouse
> and Appsoft come to mind as the main horizontal market players.
>
> Lighthouse has not been active on the Net for a long time. That
> means nothing.
Yes it does, it means that good things are brewing there, and they are too
busy to post! Au contraire, when the coding gets done, THEN you'll see a
flurry.
>
> Andrew seems to have a good business head as well as being an
excellent
> application engineer, and they are not making the mistake of
trying
> to advertise software that is not written yet!
>
When my engineer hat is on, I begrudge that there is so much more
to selling software than excellent code, but you also can't do it on
promises either - the great code has to be there.
And you have to keep providing maintenance fixs and major
upgrades. It's the support which will make or break you. That, and the
awesome parties. There IS a community here, and it's going to be using
NEXTSTEP through the millenium [nice score, Jayson!].
Realistically, it's hard as hell to maintain Someone Else's Code,
agreed? Object code is at least doable, but assembly language? I felt
sorry for Randy when I learned about that.
Stone Design is in this for the long haul - why invest many people
years in 3 products and then bail, right when the going gets interesting?
Admittedly, the shock wave from early February dented a few prides
and bank accounts. But that's just "Back to the good old days", the
austerity and bleeding edge which is actually an entrepreneur's tonic.
Remember, something still has to be better than NeXTSTEP, and as
stable, before the black iron goes to scrap. I am still psyched about 3.2,
and 4.0, and ...
andrew
--
||<<->>||<<==>>||<<++>>||<<?>>||<<+>>||<<-->>||<<==>>||<<+>>||
!! Andrew Stone !! (505) 345-4800 !!
!! and...@stone.com <> Stone Design Corp !!
||<<->>||<<==>>||<<++>>||<<?>>||<<+>>||<<-->>||<<==>>||<<+>>||
Marcus Daniels
I sure hope there is a future for PasteUp. It is a great program,
but it needs work. Forget about new features, bug fixes and
performance improvments is all I want.
It'd be sad if this is the end of the road for Rightbrain.
Do people really care about ordinary word processors for NEXTSTEP
(e.g. ExactlyWrite)? Seems to me if wanted the usual apps you'd buy
Executor or SoftPC (Microsoft word works amazingly well with
Executor).
I hope this Mission Critical app plan doesn't get too far out of hand.
Scott Anguish
> In article <287j89$d...@digifix.digifix.com> sang...@digifix.com (Scott
> Anguish) writes:
> > Lighthouse has not been active on the Net for a long time. That
> > means nothing.
>
> Yes it does, it means that good things are brewing there, and they are too
> busy to post! Au contraire, when the coding gets done, THEN you'll see a
> flurry.
Thats what I meant! I should have made that clearer!
> >
> > Andrew seems to have a good business head as well as being an
> excellent
> > application engineer, and they are not making the mistake of
> trying
> > to advertise software that is not written yet!
> >
>
> When my engineer hat is on, I begrudge that there is so much more
> to selling software than excellent code, but you also can't do it on
> promises either - the great code has to be there.
>
> And you have to keep providing maintenance fixs and major
> upgrades. It's the support which will make or break you. That, and the
> awesome parties. There IS a community here, and it's going to be using
> NEXTSTEP through the millenium [nice score, Jayson!].
>
I agree there is a community, and that unfortunately good products
don't always mean good sales. NEXTSTEP is an example of that.
BTW, I should have included Millenium in that list I guess, but they
only have 2 products right now. 3 when we get Newsgrazer Pro (pant pant)
> Realistically, it's hard as hell to maintain Someone Else's Code,
> agreed? Object code is at least doable, but assembly language? I felt
> sorry for Randy when I learned about that.
>
It is definately hard as hell to maintain someone elses code. Hell at
times its hard to maintain MY code! :-)
> Stone Design is in this for the long haul - why invest many people
> years in 3 products and then bail, right when the going gets interesting?
>
Yes! Stone Design has an excellent product line, and we need them!
Don Yacktman mentioned the other day that if you are starting a new
NEXTSTEP company, you gotta get Design in the name someplace.
Stone DESIGN, Athena DESIGN... :-)
Scott Anguish
> lu...@lusty.tamu.edu (Lusty Wench) writes:
>
> >In article <287j89$d...@digifix.digifix.com>,
> >Scott Anguish <sang...@digifix.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Well who are the big boys? Rightbrain, Stone, Athena, Lighthouse
> >> and Appsoft come to mind as the main horizontal market players.
>
>
> >Am I the only one who tried to buy some fonts from Rightbrain
> >recently? They aren't selling fonts any more. I was told to
> >complain to NeXT if I didn't like it.
>
> I sure hope there is a future for PasteUp. It is a great program,
> but it needs work. Forget about new features, bug fixes and
> performance improvments is all I want.
>
> It'd be sad if this is the end of the road for Rightbrain.
Whoa! Thats a big jump there. Just because AppSoft is gone,
don't assume that Rightbrain is too!
Doug DeJulio
Ah well, perhaps some other NeXTish company will pick up the products.
--
Doug DeJulio
dd...@cmu.edu
(Stuck using Windows at the moment anyway because my 486DX2-66 only has 8M RAM)
Scott Anguish
> I don't suppose NeXT can be convinced to re-bundle WriteNow...?
>
> Ah well, perhaps some other NeXTish company will pick up the products.
Thats not practical since WriteNow is written in Assembly and would
need to be re-written to support multiple platforms.
The Word Processing future is Pages and ExactlyRight by the looks of
things.
(BTW, I forgot Lighthouse Design out of the list of successful "*
Design" named companies. Yet another reason to go with a name that ends in
Design!)
Charles C. Lloyd
>
>
>You want to know why Appsoft is gone?
>Bad Management.
Not knowing much about Appsoft, I have to say that as I read their post, which
sounded very sour-grape-ish and all too ready to blame the NeXT market (ie NeXT
itself), I thought to myself, "Oh, and mismanagement of the company had nothing
to do with their failure???" When a baseball team does poorly, the owners
don't blame the fact that the fans aren't behind them, they fire the coach; it
almost always comes back to management (that's why good managers get paid so
well).
Charles.
--
Charles Lloyd cll...@GLeap.sccsi.com
GiantLeap Software
(713) 292-2442 or 363-0887 (Hou) (713) 363-0936 (fax)
c...@ardi.com
...
>Do people really care about ordinary word processors for NEXTSTEP
>(e.g. ExactlyWrite)? Seems to me if wanted the usual apps you'd buy
>Executor or SoftPC (Microsoft word works amazingly well with
>Executor).
Note Marcus doesn't *explicitly* say it, so I will. If you want to run
Word, it makes sense to use Executor on Black hardware and Soft-PC on
white hardware. We actually advise people to consider using Soft-PC
for any program that runs on both Macintoshes and Windows, if they are
running NEXTSTEP/Intel.
Note: Executor would be able to access the screen much faster on both
platforms if we could use the software that allows users to
bypass DPS. We actually had someone at NeXT ask if we were
interested. We replied emphatically YES, but apparently nobody
can actually get it into our hands because they have to run
some sort of licensing stuff through their *one* lawyer. Now
*that's* a bad sign.
Consequently, Executor/DOS will appear to the end-user to run
about three or four times faster than Executor/NEXTSTEP/Intel,
solely because we can't get to the screen... You'd think the
embarrassment of being thumped by DOS would shame a response,
but I guess not. We get treated much better by DEC than we do
by NeXT and we probably won't have an AXP version of Executor
out until early next year.
[btw, this is an experiment in public grousing; I usually hold
my tongue, but I actually believe it to be a travesty that
Executor/DOS will appear significantly more powerful than
Executor/NEXTSTEP/Intel, but I do not know in which direction to
turn...anyone important listening?]
>I hope this Mission Critical app plan doesn't get too far out of hand.
Judging by the RightBrain saga as described in NeXTWORLD Extra, it may
already have done just that.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
>Eric Scott Boltz writes
>>
>>
>>You want to know why Appsoft is gone?
>>Bad Management.
>Not knowing much about Appsoft, I have to say that as I read their
>post, which sounded very sour-grape-ish and all too ready to blame the
>NeXT market (ie NeXT itself), I thought to myself, "Oh, and
>mismanagement of the company had nothing to do with their failure???"
>When a baseball team does poorly, the owners don't blame the fact that
>the fans aren't behind them, they fire the coach; it almost always
>comes back to management (that's why good managers get paid so well).
Please people, whether or not bad management was the coup de grace that
did in Appsoft, NeXT's twists and turns has had a severe impact on
*all* of the ISV's as far as I know (perhaps not Athena). Check out
Simson's article in NEXTWORLD Extra on p.20. Clearly Stone and
Lighthouse experienced some revenue shortfalls too.
Remember, just before pulling the plug, NeXT was crowing about how they
had just had a profitable quarter. A little before that, Steve was
talking about going public Real Soon Now. Neither news was not
presented with any hint that they'd soon be pulling the plug on their
hardware operation and in fact, when the 50,000 units sold to date
figure came out, many people were quite surprised because they thought
the number was about 75,000.
I'm not trying to pick on NeXT here, nor am I claiming that Appsoft's
management was good; I really don't know. I do know, from personal
experience, that a few heads ups here and there probably have made
things easier on a variety of ISVs, although they may have been a bad
idea over all, because they might have precipitated a panic.
I have not seen Appsoft's business plan, but I'll bet that it expected
a growth rate that NeXT did not live up to. You can call that bad
management, but I'll bet that the de-facto business plan for most NeXT
ISVs had similar assumptions built in. Name a major difference between
Appsoft and the "successfull" companies (Lighthouse, Athena, Stone)?
Appsoft was venture funded. I have no idea how much or how little that
affected things, but it's quite possible that Appsoft didn't have the
flexibility that the other companies have had (for us, NeXT's decision
was the kick in the pants that we needed to get into the DOS market).
Appsoft was large enough and had big enough goals that it probably
didn't have the flexibility to change, especially since the need for
change wasn't apparent until it was too late. However, Appsoft was
sufficiently small that you can bet that Randy himself must be
considerably tied up in it. I have no gripes with Randy or Appsoft.
If they had bitten me on the ass (and for the record, they haven't),
then I'd consider kicking them, even kicking them as they were going
down, but once they are down for the count, kicking, poking or even
brushing up against a tender spot is cruel, even if it is
unintentional.
Maybe Randy's letter did smack of sour grapes; maybe there was some
bad management, but if it were *you* and *your* company, how would *you*
feel?
Aside from death of friends and family and divorce, I would guess that
writing the variety of letters associated with closing down a business
(or in this case, radically restructuring it) would be one of the
hardest things a person can do. I sincerely hope *I'll* never have to find
out.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
Michael Giddings
> Please people, whether or not bad management was the coup de grace that
> did in Appsoft, NeXT's twists and turns has had a severe impact on
> *all* of the ISV's as far as I know (perhaps not Athena). Check out
> Simson's article in NEXTWORLD Extra on p.20. Clearly Stone and
> Lighthouse experienced some revenue shortfalls too.
>
> I'm not trying to pick on NeXT here, nor am I claiming that Appsoft's
> management was good; I really don't know. I do know, from personal
> experience, that a few heads ups here and there probably have made
> things easier on a variety of ISVs, although they may have been a bad
> idea over all, because they might have precipitated a panic.
>
>
>
> Aside from death of friends and family and divorce, I would guess that
> writing the variety of letters associated with closing down a business
> (or in this case, radically restructuring it) would be one of the
> hardest things a person can do. I sincerely hope *I'll* never have to find
> out.
>
> --Cliff
> c...@ardi.com
From my discussions with him months ago, Randy has been planning this for a
while, as much out of a seeming angst as anything else. This is just my
interpretation of discussions with him, but he did say at one point that he
wouldn't spend another dime on NeXTSTEP development until NeXT got it
together, etc. He also has referred a number of times to the "vultures" on
the net and in the NeXT market (which was in a relatively friendly discussion
I had with him), and how he had no desire to deal with them any longer.
We have bought a number of products from Appsoft, and had very minimal support
from them. They have failed to bug fixes and upgrades any time recently.
Many users perceptions have been that Appsoft was dying because of both the
lack of support, and a very negative attitude. It is my opinion that some of
this death is self-caused.
I agree that the market may be harsh right now, but making excuses for a
company that couldn't cut it, in part because of their attitude, is
unnecessary.
I do think it is unfortunate that Appsoft is gone, and I have no ill will
towards Randy. At the same time, I don't feel sorry for him or the company,
which was mostly closed months ago. I would feel much worse if one of the
other players who have been POSITIVE supporters in the NeXTSTEP market went
away, such as Lighthouse, Stone, etc.
Michael Giddings
Disclaimer: Note that these are just my interpretations of Randy's letters to
me a few months ago, and thus should be interpreted solely as my opinion.
d.wagley
> And you have to keep providing maintenance fixs and major
> upgrades. It's the support which will make or break you. That, and the
I think this was one of Appsoft's major problems. I bought Appsoft Draw.
Draw had lots of bugs. Like many others I waited for bug fixes, and
waited, and waited, and waited. Out comes Image. It looks good, but
it's expensive. What if it's buggy too? What if Appsoft doesn't release
any bug fixes? Better not risk buying it....
IMHO, support is one of the biggest issues. If someone isn't going to
stand behind their products, then I won't be a customer for very long.
Doug
David Peter
Anguish) writes:
> Don Yacktman mentioned the other day that if you are starting a
new
> NEXTSTEP company, you gotta get Design in the name someplace.
>
> Stone DESIGN, Athena DESIGN... :-)
Didn't anybody ever wonder what the "D" in HSD stands for? DESIGN, of
course...
Sincerely,
David W. Peter
HSD Inc.
Ph. (408) 774-1400
Fax (408) 774-1402
dpe...@hsd.com (NeXTmail)
--
Sincerely,
David W. Peter
HSD Inc.
Steven C Weintz
> In article <287j89$d...@digifix.digifix.com>,
> Scott Anguish <sang...@digifix.com> wrote:
> >
> > Well who are the big boys? Rightbrain, Stone, Athena, Lighthouse
> > and Appsoft come to mind as the main horizontal market players.
>
>
> Am I the only one who tried to buy some fonts from Rightbrain
> recently? They aren't selling fonts any more. I was told to
> complain to NeXT if I didn't like it.
I feel I must put in a good word about RightBrain. I recently purchased
PasteUp, TypeView and the Adobe font Lithos for VERY reasonable prices.
Tom Friesch at RightBrain was extremely helpful, even patiently enduring
my financial shenanigans (the credit card account I sent him the first
time was maxed out :-( ). Earlier, in August, Glenn Reid himself sent me
info on academic pricing.
While I enjoy a bargain as much as anyone, I'd much rather support a
healthy developer community. For now I'm taking advantage of my student
status to start my new NeXTSTEP-based graphics business on the cheap.
However, I've committed to several major vendors to pay full price for the
apps I buy once I'm in commercial operation. This seems only fair, as I
won't be a student much longer. I really appreciate the consideration, and
want to reciprocate accordingly.
I'm sorry to see any NeXTSTEP developer go, but I still find a pretty good
selection of tools out there for the things I want to do (DTP, 3D
graphics, OCR, image processing, etc.) I am grateful for the cooperation
I've recieved from so many in the NeXTSTEP development community. Finding
the tools to start a very specialized business (computer graphics and DTP
for the anthropological profession) from a standing start is as
mission-critical as I can imagine. I strongly believe in NeXTSTEP
technology and in the NeXT community, and I look forward to its growth and
success.
My $0.02,
Steve Weintz
scwg...@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu
J.B. Nicholson-Owens
>Do people really care about ordinary word processors for NEXTSTEP
>(e.g. ExactlyWrite)? Seems to me if wanted the usual apps you'd buy
>Executor or SoftPC (Microsoft word works amazingly well with
>Executor).
I certainly do. I think it's unusably slow and lacking features to
run an emulator just to get the word processor/DTP apps I want.
Executor lacks System-7 and color, SoftPC is too slow and (last I saw)
lacks support for high resolutions. For the money/speed/features, I'm
choosing to work on the real machine so I can take maximum advantage
of the software I choose to use.
I think NS has the *possibility* of blowing any word processor/DTP app
I've ever seen clear out of the water, but so far I can't say I've
seen it done. In the area of long and regular DTP, Frame comes
closest, but since Frame/Mac works the same (almost exact same
interface, even), imports at least one more important and widely used
format than Frams/NS (namely, MS Word) and continues to be actively
supported (unlike Frame/NS), I don't see any reason to stick with the
dying (or perhaps already dead) Frame/NS, so I'm moving my files over
to the Mac until something better comes along for NS.
I think NS could be a word processing powerhouse, taking over where
Macs reign and making end-users take serious (and lucrative) notice of
NS. Like it or not, word processing and DTP continue to be something
people actually buy computers to use. Now that NS is available on
relatively inexpensive hardware -- PCs, it's more accessible to the
public than it has ever been. However, given the selection of word
processing/DTP applications for NS compared to what you can get
elsewhere, I can understand why NS is not the first choice for word
processing and DTP users.
--
J.B. Nicholson-Owens (No NeXTmail please)
J.B. Nicholson-Owens
> Very true, but the advertised Perspective, which was in beta more than
>a year ago and isn't a product, the Mail.app that never was, and to a lesser
>degree Solution.
Perspective, the first Renderman 3D app I remember seeing for NS,
never struck me as that impressive given it's competition (Stone
Design's 3D Reality), but not without promise. That is, with some
effort, I think it could have been duking it out with 3D Reality for a
long time. Last I recall seeing, the for-sale product wasn't
significantly better than the beta distributed on the net.
When I saw the names of the array of products Appsoft planned on
marketing, I didn't think many would be useful to me, but their
Mail.app replacement sounded like one of the more interesting ones. I
thought it would finally be a NeXTmail-capable application that can
compete with what I can FTP for next to nothing from the net.
Unfortunately, the product never saw the light of day.
Solution sounded like something I thought would be great for NS
spreadsheet consumers as it would promote competition for Athena
Design's Mesa. Unfortunately, again, it didn't end up that way.
Glenn Reid
Eric Scott Boltz writes:
> You want to know why Appsoft is gone?
> Bad Management.
> for Solution - a product that didn't exist!
Well, that full-color, full-page ad still only cost about $7,000. That's
nothing to bring out a shrink-wrap product. On the Mac, you'd probably
spend somewhere around $100,000 in a month's worth of advertising. A
$7,000.00 expense won't kill a software company, especially one with
venture backing.
Scott Anguish writes:
> They were well backed, but this has been building for a while with
> Appsoft. Much of what has happened could have been avoided, and
> unfortunately I see RightBrain making the same mistakes as Appsoft
> did. Advertising products that you can't buy today! I hope that
> doesn't happen to them.
Well, advertising doesn't have that much to do with it, frankly. If
people call about a product that you can't sell them, at least you can
get their name and contact them when it does ship, or sell them
something else that is shipping. Most people who call simply ask
for more information anyway, and advertising is intended to
generate contacts and to advertise the company as much as to
specifically to sell products.
It's not clear that Appsoft was poorly managed. Why don't you ponder
the fact that NeXTconnection no longer advertises in NeXTWORLD magazine,
if you're looking for something to think about? A mail order-only
business that doesn't advertise?
No point (or sport) in beating up Randy or Appsoft. Let's just hope
it's an anomaly.
--
Glenn Reid NeXTmail: gl...@rightbrain.com
RightBrain Software 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
Palo Alto, California Electronic Frontier Foundation, member #054
Lusty Wench
Steven C Weintz <scwg...@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>In article <287o5i$3...@TAMUTS.TAMU.EDU> lu...@lusty.tamu.edu (Lusty Wench)
>writes:
>> In article <287j89$d...@digifix.digifix.com>,
>> Scott Anguish <sang...@digifix.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Well who are the big boys? Rightbrain, Stone, Athena, Lighthouse
>> > and Appsoft come to mind as the main horizontal market players.
>>
>>
>> Am I the only one who tried to buy some fonts from Rightbrain
>> recently? They aren't selling fonts any more. I was told to
>> complain to NeXT if I didn't like it.
>
>I feel I must put in a good word about RightBrain. I recently purchased
>PasteUp, TypeView and the Adobe font Lithos for VERY reasonable prices.
>Tom Friesch at RightBrain was extremely helpful, even patiently enduring
>my financial shenanigans (the credit card account I sent him the first
>time was maxed out :-( ). Earlier, in August, Glenn Reid himself sent me
>info on academic pricing.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of RightBrain. I also
bought PasteUp and a couple of fonts, and even then bought two more
fonts just before the end of their half-price promotion. My initial
shipment of PasteUp was Motorola-only, and one of the font disks
was unreadable. Glenn took it upon himself to ship me replacement
diskettes for Saturday delivery. I was in no hurry, but was obviously
pleasantly surprised.
I have since used PasteUp to produce 6 pages of new company literature
for my office, which was also my "learning" period for PasteUp. The
literature went from first draft direct to film in the space of 5 days,
which is quite a feat considering that no less than 8 people got the
opportunity to edit this (and some took advantage of the opportunity
extensively).
While PasteUp does have bugs, I found it very painless to use in what
was an extremely stressful situation. Without it I would not have
been able to produce this new literature prior to our biggest trade
show of the year. I have no experience using any other page layout
package, so I can't say how PasteUp compares, but it was certainly
adequate for this (admittedly simple) project.
What concerns me is that during this process I found the need to use
a font I did not have, and contacted RightBrain about the pricing for
this font, only to find (not 4 weeks after I had previously bought
2 fonts from them) that RightBrain is no longer selling fonts. And
this comes about 3 weeks after the FAQ concerning fonts was changed
to show that RightBrain now has a special "font hotline". I just
kind of would like to know what's going on.
Lusty
c...@ardi.com
...
>Didn't anybody ever wonder what the "D" in HSD stands for? DESIGN, of
>course...
Just don't tell us that the HS stands for High School--Nice zip-gun though.
Thanks; I made it in shop.
>Sincerely,
>
>David W. Peter
Tongue in cheekily,
--Cliff
p.s.
Welcome Back David!
J.B. Nicholson-Owens
>The Word Processing future is Pages and ExactlyRight by the looks of
>things.
Is Pages out yet? I'm anxious to see what this product offers, since
it sounds like it could fill my needs for a regular and long DTP
product.
One thing about ExactlyWrite: From what I recall reading of
ExactlyWrite (or is it ExactlyRight?), it will be based on the 3.x
NeXT Text object and not a custom object. After reading tons of
programming notes saying how poorly documented, uncustomizeable and
unextendable the Text object is (not to mention how current text
object projects end up using a custom text object because the
NeXT-supplied one is inadequate), I get the feeling it will take a
*lot* of work to get the Text object to work well and to make
ExactlyWrite a competitive piece of software. I'm not saying the work
couldn't be done, or that I know from personal experience that any
work needs to be done, I'm going based on what I've read in the past.
I hope things go smoothly for the release of all coming NS word
processing and DTP apps. If all goes well for a while these products
could be the dawn of making NS a word processing/DTP haven.
Nathan F. Janette
> I don't suppose NeXT can be convinced to re-bundle WriteNow...?
>
> Ah well, perhaps some other NeXTish company will pick up the products.
Gag, no!
NeXT should slightly extend Edit.app to make it better for simple text
processing, and leave everything else to the ISVs. Forget about
ExactlyWrite/WriteNow, etc, they have no function except to distract
NeXT and users from using a single simple RTF document standard.
The next level up from Edit.app will be Word Perfect, which hopefully
will increase their pace of development for the NEXTSTEP version. One
bad sign: the support line for NEXTSTEP is not toll-free, and is one of
the last options on their main voicemail menu, somewhere around the
Amiga version!
The highest level will of course be PasteUp, Pages, Frame (if they stay
in the game), etc.
--
Nathan "USENET" Janette
PPP link from hilbert.csb.yale.edu
Please reply to: nat...@laplace.csb.yale.edu (NeXT)
Marcus Daniels
>Marcus Daniels writes:
>>Do people really care about ordinary word processors for NEXTSTEP
>>(e.g. ExactlyWrite)?
>I certainly do. I think it's unusably slow and lacking features to
>run an emulator just to get the word processor/DTP apps I want.
>Executor lacks System-7 and color, SoftPC is too slow and (last I saw)
>lacks support for high resolutions. For the money/speed/features, I'm
>choosing to work on the real machine so I can take maximum advantage
>of the software I choose to use.
Yes, but WriteNow doesn't impress anyone. Getting all the features
people expect in DTP or even word processors is a huge task.
I don't use Executor as a Mac, I use it for Microsoft products. For
this purpose, it is better than a Mac (if you don't care about System
7 document linking).
With Frame gone, there isn't a NeXT DTP solution that provides any
kind of document management tools. PasteUp has no support in the
regard -- that's not a criticism, PasteUp isn't that kind of product.
Regarding ExactlyWrite, I'm sure there is some market for existing users.
But for the MCCA market/financial market, seems like users would be more
inclined to use apps they were familiar with (MSW on Executor/Motorlla,
or WP5.1/6.0 DOS or Winword on Soft PC/NSFIP). Otherwise it seems
like they'd be interested in superior NEXTSTEP solutions, namely
PasteUp.
But I'm being selfish PasteUp owner. :-)
Scott Hess
sang...@digifix.com (Scott Anguish) writes:
>John Kheit writes
>> Man I cant believe that Appsoft has just turned and died!!!
>> I thought they would have some staying power, but doesnt look
>> good.
>
> Appsoft. Much of what has happened could have been avoided, and
> unfortunately I see RightBrain making the same mistakes as Appsoft
> did. Advertising products that you can't buy today! I hope that
> doesn't happen to them.
This is exactly the problem I have with many companies in the NeXT
market. As I see it, there are two basic means of establishing
yourself in a market:
A Pick something you are good at, or like, or want, or otherwise
can concentrate on. Work on it. Devote lots of time to
it. If you get something nice, start showing it around and
selling it. Show people that you're worth working with.
Build from nothing and then get bigger gradually. Do
everything on a shoestring.
B Find someone with really deep pockets and start spending
money. If you spend enough money, people will assume you
really have something there (otherwise, why spend all that
money?). Purchase full page, centerfold, and cover ads.
Once you have the market, build a product to sell to it.
Now, both approaches have serious problems. Perhaps the most basic,
though, is cornering a market. With approach A, you might have an
awesome product, and might be making just enough to get by, when
suddenly a company under the B plan comes along and spends the
money necessary to saturate your market, basically buying it out
from under you.
On the other hand, with plan B, you need to have _deep_ pockets.
In an established market like the Windows market, you can reasonably
expect that if you spend a certain amount of money on advertising
and programming skill, you will make back a certain amount of money.
Not a guaranteed profit, but not a complete loss. In the NeXT
market, though, you might have to spend big bucks for _years_ before
you show any decent income at all.
Then again, they both have advantages. With plan B, you might get
lucky and buy out a market that will give reasonably quick payoff.
With plan A, you might become so closely associated with your market
segment that it scares off all the plan B companies, allowing you
to gradually find your level. Also, under plan A you can always
drop what you are doing and go do something else (after all, you've
only got a small investment going. Sure, it might be everything
you own, but so long as it's not everything someone _else_ owns
that you're playing with, you have choices).
Personally, I'm sticking with plan A. Breeding money simply doesn't
work in the NeXT market at this time. And you always have to keep
in mind that after spending $$$M on a project, NeXT might decide
to target some market that doesn't really have a niche for your
product in it ...
Later,
--
scott hess <sh...@ssesco.com> <To the BatCube, Robin>
12901 Upton Avenue South, #326 Burnsville, MN 55337 (612) 895-1208 Anytime!
Neil Greene
It is a sad thing to see any developers make a decision to leave the NeXT
market. I was speaking with a customer earlier today and we both agreed
that this is an indication of the worst.
"it is one thing to here WordPerfect or Frame decide to hold off on
the NeXT market. It is even worse to here of a NeXT _only_
company deciding to give it up because of financial strain in the
market."
Gerard Philippe Menos
writes:
>...
> It is a sad thing to see any developers make a decision to leave the
NeXT
> market. I was speaking with a customer earlier today and we both
agreed
> that this is an indication of the worst.
This is only a part of the picture. Any transition has some endings
and some beginnings. To concentrate on the endings only is to see a
partial picutre only --what the Indians call Maya, right SS? You
don't want to be short-sighted, do you... My condolences to Appsoft,
and my thanks for all the efforts you've made and will continue to
make toward the success of a great platform.
With all good wishes,
Phil
--
G. Philippe Menos
gpm...@firestone.princeton.edu [NeXTmail OK.]
Systems Administrator, Princeton University Libraries
voice: 609-258-5183 fax: 609-258-5571
Chris Lloyd
>market. I was speaking with a customer earlier today and we both agreed
>that this is an indication of the worst.
>
> "it is one thing to here WordPerfect or Frame decide to hold off on
> the NeXT market. It is even worse to here of a NeXT _only_
> company deciding to give it up because of financial strain in the
> market."
I consider AppSoft to be the exception and not the rule, their
departure leaves a small gap in the market, and a lot of advertising
space in NeXTWorld.
They blew a lot of vulture capital on buying other peoples work and
pretty advertising - in the end they had a lot of unfinished and
allegedly buggy products which had a considerable amount of good
competition, coupled with bad tactics (ala the WriteNow post) I fail
to see how they would have made the kind of money they needed WITH a
big NEXTSTEP market.
They tried to conquer most of the NEXTSTEP productivity app market
and it blew up in their face. Make a big bet - take a big loss.
Disclaimer: I don't know anyone at or related to AppSoft and have
nothing to gain by being blunt in my observations.
<shrug>
--
:: Christopher Lloyd :: Yrrid Incorporated :: ll...@world.std.com ::
Robert Claeson
> Do people really care about ordinary word processors for NEXTSTEP
> (e.g. ExactlyWrite)? Seems to me if wanted the usual apps you'd buy
> Executor or SoftPC (Microsoft word works amazingly well with
> Executor).
Heh, I'd love to have Lotus Ami Pro or Microsoft Word running native under
NEXTSTEP...
--
Robert Claeson, Data General AB, Sweden
Email: Robert....@sweden.dg.com
X.400: G=Robert; S=Claeson; P=Data General; A=400net; C=SE
NeXTmail is accepted and in fact encouraged.
Nicolas Dore
[munch, munch]
> The trouble with Draw didn't help. If solution had gotten finished
> cleaned up and released, then I think we could have seen them turn
> around.
>
> Image is a good program, and hopefully someone will pick it up.
Wait a second here.
Doesn't NeXT have something to say about this? Image is basically NeXT's
Icon.app, written, redesigned and debugged by Keith Olfs first and Appsoft
afterwards. Didn't NeXT put conditions on the transfer (Rethorical question,
since they did: Appsoft had to ship less than XX days after 3.0 came out to
keep the license. I don't know about other stuff that could come into play here
- such as "has to be actively supported, blah blah...").
[munch, munch]
> In order to compete at this point Draw and WriteNow would have to be
> totally re-written, and that would take alot of cash.
See Image comments above and apply to WriteNow.
> - Scott Anguish -
Ciao
--
Nicolas Dore ni...@imani.cam.org
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> "Le calembour est la fiente du mot qui vole." <
> Victor Hugo <
Mane Wuehr
>I'm afraid I don't see Appsoft as a big loss for the NeXTSTEP community.
>First, they had only one decent product: Image.
>Image was slow and overpriced.
>Draw! - oooo I could go on and on about this one! Bugs bugs bugs!
>WriteNow - they were "working" on 3.0 for how many years?
>Solution - yeah right!
>You want to know why Appsoft is gone?
>Bad Management.
>This is a company that two months ago was taking out full page, color ads
>for Solution - a product that didn't exist!
>Nope, Appsoft isn't anything too worry about. We still have plenty of good,
>well-managed developers out there.
>Eric
>(IMHO of course)
Yes, and I was upgrading my (in these days bundled) WriteNow to the then
new German version ... Looking at it, I found that a) it was _only_
German (meaning that an English user gets it German, too) and b) it had
no German dictionry, so that you can't use the spellchecking.
Think about it: you have an only German program that does only
English spellchecking!!
And the price for the update was even too high for a real update.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manfred W"uhr @ ma...@simplework.octagon.de
Blumenstrasse 16 ~ ~ Work: +49-881-9321-20
Mark Thomsen
> Man I cant believe that Appsoft has just turned and died!!!
Well, hoist one and remember that this can be a brutal world. They
pushed products into the market and tried to pull some others.
They made a few mistakes, but did some things right as well. I
feel the NextStep world is a tiny bit diminished when one of the
well-backed (at least at the start) companies devoted to this
market folds its hand.
It is hard to feel too angry. I get more upset with Frame for
pulling out after the market seemed to accept their product well.
I hear Boss Logic is folding its hand as well.
Has anyone heard what Randy plans to do personally?
Are there lessons learned here?
Mark R. Thomsen
TRW and Gemstone Systems
c...@ardi.com
...
>The highest level will of course be PasteUp, Pages, Frame (if they stay
>in the game), etc.
Hmmm... I thought Yale via Nathan boycotts PasteUp because of the "advertising"
that RightBrain has done on the net. I've certainly been rebuked and had a
boycott threatened for providing information (including that horrible bit
of information: its price) about our product.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
U54...@uicvm.uic.edu
Dore) says:
>> Image is a good program, and hopefully someone will pick it up.
Image is not a good program. It _could have been_ a good program, but
massive memory hemorrhaging and overall bugginess, not to mention lack
of support, really doomed it.
>
>Wait a second here.
>
>Doesn't NeXT have something to say about this? Image is basically NeXT's
>Icon.app, written, redesigned and debugged by Keith Olfs first and Appsoft
From what I've heard, this is not true. Appsoft purchased the rights to
Keith's (Ohlfs, btw) work, then proceeded to bury it. I believe that
Image was written basically from scratch by Appsoft hired hands.
As an aside - now that Image is gasping its last breaths, I would like to
put in my vote for TIFFany as the premiere image editing/processing
application under NS, especially now that TIFFany2 beta has just been
released. If you didn't get a chance to check it out at NEXPO, take my
word for it - TIFFany packs tons of great features in an incredibly
robust application. (Steve Jobs was also impressed, and hung out at the
TIFFany booth for quite a while on the last day of the show.)
Disclaimer: I am only an extremely impressed customer of bMD (publisher
of TIFFany), not an employee (though I wouldn't mind 'cause
they're going to make a bunch of money.;-))
-tom nawara
nir...@boss.math.uic.edu
Ken-ichiro Aoki
The product is indeed buggy and I bought it fully knowing this.
The reason being that it was 1/3 of the competing products
for me, early this year. It is not a beauty, but it is not that
bad a product. (IMO) They had to lower their price to a level where
it was no longer profitable, it seems to me.
This seems to point to one thing:
How close to the edge the developers are operating.
Every once in a while, we see posts from developers which seem to
note this in passing. (I recall, gvh from metrosoft, g. reid from
rightbrain, ardi, etc.)
Perhaps NS/FIP will remove all these problems, then again, maybe not.
NS users should keep this in mind. A lot of NS apps are a good deal
for the buck and the volume is not that big. If people don't buy apps,
apps will disappear and so will NS.
A couple of more comments regarding Appsoft:
The business dealings we had with them (when I was in the US) was
very pleasant. For instance, they did not charge me for the product
at least a week after I had received the product and ADraw1.01->1.02
was a free upgrade.
The inconsistencies of ADraw feels a little like a hack. A knowledgeable
source told me that it was never rewritten, even though it was originally
written for NS1.0. In general, they seem to have fallen victim to
the way they operate: to sell/maintain other people's code.
ADraw is a great product if they could have fixed the bugs.
Even as is, it fills the gap between the precise drawing apps like
Virtuoso and bundled Draw. Also, one should keep in mind that
even the other apps also have some bugs. (I have used Virtuoso,
Illustrator, Create also. In one of them, the app exited a couple
of times without saving in few hours of usage. the magic key
was control mouse click at the right moment.) However, one does
expect them to fix the bugs, which was what Appsoft could not do.
--
Kenichiro Aoki (k...@phys.titech.ac.jp), Department of Physics,
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Oh-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, JAPAN
青木健一郎，東京工業大学理学部物理学科，〒152 東京都目黒区大岡山
c...@ardi.com
ites:
...
Re: Appsoft's exiting the NeXT marketplace
>Are there lessons learned here?
I know I'm just being contradictory here, but many of the conclusions
that people will draw will be on shaky ground. Think of it as playing
poker. There are various strategies that are absolutely correct, but
will still fail; in fact, in some situatins, the correct strategy will
fail more often than not. In gambling, it's known as "variance".
You can have the correct strategy and execute it flawlessly and still
lose.
The sad thing is that many of the companies that have a choice have
opted out of support for NEXTSTEP, *for now*. Remember when dumping on
Appsoft, that Lotus, Frame and a few others have left the NEXTSTEP
market as well. The only lessons that I would draw would be based on
*all* the companies that have left the NEXT market. Things that
Appsoft in particular allegedly did wrong don't appear to me to be as
significant as the common factor that runs through Appsoft, Lotus,
Frame and others: large companies that went in to the NeXT market with
guns a blazing (i.e. a standard business model) seem to have run out of
ammunition before little companies (with ad-hoc business plans) that
were incubated totally in the NEXT environment (receiving source and
outside funding puts Appsoft in the former, rather than the latter
category).
I think we're coming at it from slightly different angles, but it looks
like Scott Hess and I have come to the same conclusion.
Trouble is, that tells us more about what seemed to work in '90 - '93
rather than what will work in '94 and on. Goes to show, you don't ever
know ...
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
Tom M. Blenko
| >The highest level will of course be PasteUp, Pages, Frame (if they stay
| >in the game), etc.
|
| Hmmm... I thought Yale via Nathan boycotts PasteUp because of the
"advertising"
| that RightBrain has done on the net. I've certainly been rebuked and had a
| boycott threatened for providing information (including that horrible bit
| of information: its price) about our product.
I can assure you that Nathan does not speak for Yale (not
that I know of him speaking of such a boycott). There are at
least two PasteUp owners on campus that I know of (and
that's just incidental information).
Tom
Jonathan Traupman
>Marcus Daniels writes
>
>> Do people really care about ordinary word processors for NEXTSTEP
>> (e.g. ExactlyWrite)? Seems to me if wanted the usual apps you'd buy
>> Executor or SoftPC (Microsoft word works amazingly well with
>> Executor).
>
>Heh, I'd love to have Lotus Ami Pro or Microsoft Word running native under
Yuck. I'd rather see a kick a** native word processor that'll show
Microslug how it should be done.
--
Jonathan Traupman | .:'''''':.
PO Box 3124 Yale Station | : : "Nuke the whales"
New Haven, CT 06520-3124 | ''':'':''' I hate PC...
jo...@minerva.cis.yale.edu | -:--:- ...both types
David John Burrowes
price for, say, Image? Or. What was the phone number again?
J.B. Nicholson-Owens
>Yuck. I'd rather see a kick a** native word processor that'll show
>Microslug how it should be done.
So, you don't think a big-name app from a big-name company would help
NS? I don't understand why. Until that wonderful app comes along, I
see no problems with a native Word/NS.
It's been many years that a "kick a** native word processor" could
have come along and shown "Microslug how it should be done", but in my
opinion nobody has done it. Meanwhile, NS has a few small-name
developers writing what they can and the market of end-users who might
think NS is really great, choosing to run Word on their Mac or their
Windows machines.
Personally, I think the approach of "that's not good enough for us"
has been tried and it's failed. I've heard people on the net say it
many times in relation to MS Word, all the while MS Word alone
continues to sell Macintoshes (if we had a good version of it on NS it
might sell NS machines too). I think there's room for both MS Word
and some amazing other word processor app. Competition tends to be
quite good for the consumer, rejecting applications at the slight
mention of them coming onto the relatively small NS market is (in my
view) precisely what NS doesn't need.
Royce Howland
>[...]
>You want to know why Appsoft is gone?
>Bad Management.
>This is a company that two months ago was taking out full page, color ads
>for Solution - a product that didn't exist!
Well, from my perfect ivory tower view, I can't disagree much.
>Nope, Appsoft isn't anything too worry about. We still have plenty of good,
>well-managed developers out there.
Then tell me why most of the software I buy seems to get killed?
Improv, Sybase, Draw, WriteNow, FrameMaker, and PasteUp (which I
couldn't even get installed due to a defective floppy). This from a
guy whose whole system line-up got axed, and who was way underwhelmed
by the replacement. And who was working on a big, successful, high-
profile NEXTSTEP project that got blown away after over a year and a
lot of $. Blown away by DOS/Windows, no less, although there were
other factors at work than the technical superiority of MS products.
Of the software I own that hasn't been killed yet, TTYDSP hasn't
worked for months despite several upgrades to the app and really
good email support from Yrrid (although how good can support be if
it doesn't correct problems?); and MicroPhone Pro is a bit buggy, but
generally satisfactory. Oh yeah, and there's NS 3.1 itself, which
fargs up the process table and forces me to log out constantly to
clean out its pipes. Can't wait for NS 3.2, which is thankfully free,
and will have lots of nice new features, and maybe some unwelcome ones.
So what am I left with? The only commercial package that works right
is TypeView, and it's hardly an app of any major significance. There's
also NXFax, which works really well, but which I suspect to be related
to two panics on my system of late, both caused when the machine
swapped into a brick wall and left nothing but multi-megabyte
/usr/adm/messages data saying nothing but some complaint about the
FAXdaemon (which I can't remember at the moment, and don't have a copy
of), and then hundreds of lines like:
Sep 18 10:57:53 splunge mach: vnode_pageout: failed!
Sep 18 10:57:53 splunge mach: IO error on pageout: error = 28.
Then there's a lot of stuff from the net, which is, on the whole,
really satisfying. Maybe the take-home point is that I should just
stop paying money for anything to do with my machine, and I'll be okay.
In case you haven't guessed, I'm not feeling real good about NEXTSTEP
stuff right now. But I feel even less good about the rest of what's
out there, so where does that leave me? Up the creek and back doing
C/Oracle work, is where.
I'll probably feel better about NEXTSTEP in a little while, based on
what evidence I don't really know. Probably I just can't not feel
good about it, in general, because I'm the sort that roots for the
under-dog, buys high & sells low, tries to muddle along based on
some kind of vision, and all that good stuff. But I've taken some
body blows, and each successive one gets harder & harder to bounce
back from.
To the vendors that I may have mentioned here in an unfavorable light:
Ha, ha, only serious.
--
Royce Howland
Everything is IMHO
ro...@splunge.uucp (NeXTMail OK)
or kakwa!atlantis!splunge!royce
Yrrid Incorporated
>Of the software I own that hasn't been killed yet, TTYDSP hasn't
>worked for months despite several upgrades to the app and really
>good email support from Yrrid (although how good can support be if
>it doesn't correct problems?);
Royce,
Our email correspondance on your TTYDSP problems were halted
mid-stream when you left for vacation a month and a half ago
and we have not received any followup. We would like to work
with you on resolving the problem you are having with TTYDSP.
We do not have any record of your purchase and no warranty card
was sent in. If you could return the warranty card with your
personal information we will send you a new adaptor which, upon
reflection, might be the cause of the problem.
Sincerely,
Chris Lloyd
Yrrid, Inc.
William E. Grosso
>
> Nathan obviously watches too much public television, and has
> developed an intolerance for commercials.
>
Nathan probably also watches professional sports and has thus
developed the habit of referring to itself in the
third person-neutral :-)
Bill Grosso
Nathan F. Janette
Of course Nathan doesn't speak for Yale, why would he want to?
Nathan not only threatens, but has carried out boycotts of vendors that
post commercial advertisements to Usenet newsgroups. Nathan feels
that Usenet may be in danger of losing some of it's transport networks
due to commercial misusage, and he doesn't care to let that happen if
possible. Usenet is far to valuable a resource to many people to allow
commercials ruin it. Commercials belong in the biz.* groups, nowhere
else. Read the Usenet usage guidelines for more information.
Nathan welcomes, however, the moderated posting of appropriate
product announcements in the proper group, comp.sys.next.announce,
along with all the relevant information including prices.
Nathan obviously watches too much public television, and has
developed an intolerance for commercials.
Speaking for myself only,
-Nathan
Glenn Reid
> Doesn't NeXT have something to say about this? Image is basically NeXT's
> Icon.app, written, redesigned and debugged by Keith Olfs first and Appsoft
> afterwards.
From my understanding, they (Appsoft) started with the Icon.app code,
but abandoned it early on. They licensed something from some programmers
in San Diego, although I'm fuzzy on the details. There is no Icon.app
code in Image at all, the way I heard it (which is a blessing).
--
Glenn Reid NeXTmail: gl...@rightbrain.com
RightBrain Software 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
Palo Alto, California Electronic Frontier Foundation, member #054
Nathan F. Janette
Actually, I'm embarrassed to admit I wrote and recorded the music to a
commercial used to hawk regional "Pro-Wrestling" matches a few years
ago.
c...@ardi.com
>post commercial advertisements to Usenet newsgroups. Nathan feels
>that Usenet may be in danger of losing some of it's transport networks
>due to commercial misusage, and he doesn't care to let that happen if
>possible. Usenet is far to valuable a resource to many people to allow
>commercials ruin it. Commercials belong in the biz.* groups, nowhere
>else. Read the Usenet usage guidelines for more information.
Good for Nathan. However, I've never seen the specifics associated with
the boycotts, even though my company may have been one of those boycotted.
By my definition, I've never posted a commercial advertisement on the net.
Perhaps Nathan disagrees with me, but by being secretive about it, he only
leads me to conclude that he's an autocrat.
So we're kept guessing:
Who is/was being boycotted?
For what posts in specific?
How long does the boycott last?
Who other than Nathan is participating?
Who in Yale is Nathan speaking for (i.e. on whose behalf
does he make purchasing decisons)?
With such a total lack of information, I doubt that a single ISV has
changed its behaviour, even though behaviour change ostensibly is the
goal of a boycott.
NOTE: I started this thread only because I saw Nathan mentioning PasteUp
as a potential alternative to WriteNow. I was surprised to see
this from Nathan since he's sent e-mail boycott threats to me
due to my posting in the various next newsgroups, and I assumed
that he'd boycott RightBrain if anyone. Since I made my post,
PasteUp has changed hands, but I remain mighty curious about the
boycotts that have been carried out. Perhaps we were a target,
although we didn't ever receive a letter stating that a boycott
had started or its duration, or the conditions, etc.
Sorry if I may sound snippy, but perhaps you can understand why
in this climate, threats of boycotts are a potential interest to all
NeXT ISVs.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
Darcy Brockbank
Anguish) writes:
> c...@ardi.com writes
> > to ride out bigger storms than ever before. Flying model
> > helicopters in Hurricane Gloria was a blast!]
> Flying model heli's on a CALM day is a blast! Flying model heli's in a
> Hurricane is nuts! :-)
I think he meant:
"being a NeXTSTEP only software house" == "Flying model heli's in a hurricane"
Is that what you meant Cliff?
- db
--
"No man should be discouraged from entering business through fear of
taxation." -- N. Machiavelli
"Oh God, I've got to catch Matlock at the courthouse and let him know that
we've been tricked!" -- Me, (very confused) on awakening, Sep 24, 1993
----- Opionions expressed by me, are not necessarily those of HASC -------
Matthew Dillon
>
>Nathan obviously watches too much public television, and has
>developed an intolerance for commercials.
>
>Speaking for myself only,
>
>-Nathan
Heh. I don't even have a TV. If I did, I'd buy a couple of VCR's and
tape the stuff I wanted.
When I go over to friend's houses I am generally quite amazed that they
can sit through and actually WATCH those stupid commercials.
No thank you!
-Matt
Matthew Dillon dil...@moonshot.west.oic.com
1005 Apollo Way dil...@overload.berkeley.ca.us
Incline Village, NV. 89451 ham: KC6LVW (no mail drop)
USA Sandel-Avery Engineering (702)831-8000
[always include a portion of the original email in any response!]
Nathan F. Janette
> In article <1993Oct2.0...@cs.yale.edu> nat...@laplace.csb.yale.edu
(Nathan F. Janette) writes:
> >Nathan not only threatens, but has carried out boycotts of vendors that
> >post commercial advertisements to Usenet newsgroups. Nathan feels
> >that Usenet may be in danger of losing some of it's transport networks
> >due to commercial misusage, and he doesn't care to let that happen if
> >possible. Usenet is far to valuable a resource to many people to allow
> >commercials ruin it. Commercials belong in the biz.* groups, nowhere
> >else. Read the Usenet usage guidelines for more information.
>
> Good for Nathan. However, I've never seen the specifics associated with
> the boycotts, even though my company may have been one of those boycotted.
> By my definition, I've never posted a commercial advertisement on the net.
> Perhaps Nathan disagrees with me, but by being secretive about it, he only
> leads me to conclude that he's an autocrat.
More likely I'm being a good consumer. Perhaps by your definition your
haven't posted any commercials, but I don't think that's a very honest
assessment. You've constantly posted long descriptions of your
product for well over a year. While not framed as "commercials", they
surely are such when taken as a whole. David Pollak at Athena is the only
one around who gives you a run for the money by posting as many
commercials that aren't labeled as such. Is there anywhere else
besides these NeXT newsgroups where companies feel that free
advertisements are not only their "right", but their obligation as
public information? I doubt it.
It has nothing to do with whether I or others think the products are good,
or not. I happen to think both Executor and Mesa are very interesting
products. I simply do not wish to see commercials for those products in
these groups. My even greater concern is that such illegal commercial
Internet usage will have significant negative impact on the future
operations of the various networks. How long will such behavior be
unnoticed and not addressed as the folks in DC begin to look into the
"data super highway"?
I suppose if I were an ISV, and I thought that "someone" had made all this
wonderful "free" advertising space available to me, and someone else
told me that I'm not supposed to be using it, I'd be snippy too. Not.
You see, I do consult for an ISV, and we have no problem obeying the usage
guidelines of these groups, so I have little tolerance for those of
weaker self control. We'd like lots of free advertising too, but not
if we have to steal it.
Glenn Reid
> My even greater concern is that such illegal commercial
> Internet usage will have significant negative impact on the future
> operations of the various networks. How long will such behavior be
> unnoticed and not addressed as the folks in DC begin to look into the
> "data super highway"?
You consistenly refuse to be told that this is not illegal. At worst it
stretches the overall guidelines for USENET, but the more immediate
guidelines for USENET are that it is a consensus-driven enterprise with
no central authority. You have your opinions on its use, but they are
only opinions. It is true that certain (very few) backbone sites still
have restrictions placed on them by the DoD about carrying commercial
traffic, but that is an issue for those backbone sites, not an issue for
USENET at large. The guidelines for any newsgroup are set by those who
are its constituents, and any site that is not comfortable with a given
newsgroup need not carry it, if it is in violation of some of its own
principles (as with many of the alt.* groups). USENET != Internet.
> I suppose if I were an ISV, and I thought that "someone" had made all this
> wonderful "free" advertising space available to me, and someone else
> told me that I'm not supposed to be using it, I'd be snippy too. Not.
First, it's not advertising space. They're not advertisements. It's just
information. Cliff's and David Pollak's postings consistenly offer more
valuable information, and are probably appreciated by more readers, than
your ivory-tower flames. I repeat: this is a consensus-driven forum, and
you have been repeatedly outvoted on this very issue by huge margins.
> Nathan "USENET" Janette
I think you should take "USENET" out of your signature until you understand
what it is and how it works, and has worked for 20 years, which is probably
longer than you've been using computers.
William E. Grosso
>
> First, it's not advertising space. They're not advertisements. It's
just
> information.
Er...ummmh. There's a bit o' fuzziness here. To wit:
There is some point at which "information" about products becomes
"advertising". You and Nathan both (presumably) agree that
there is such a crossover point and are quibbling about the precise
location of said point.
"They're not advertisements. It's just information" is disingenuous.
Bill Grosso
Charles C. Lloyd
>these groups. My even greater concern is that such illegal commercial
>Internet usage will have significant negative impact on the future
>operations of the various networks. How long will such behavior be
Is commercial usage really "illegal" (in the sense that I am used to) or is it
just "against the rules" as set forth by the collective brain of this anarchy
called the usenet? (That is not a rethorical question; I really do not know
the answer).
If it is illegal, then is it illegal to use email for commercial usage? Is all
internet bandwidth consumption prohibited from commercial usage? If so, I
think there are MANY violations going on. I would have to say that all these
demo programs and even shareware programs that are available for ftp are
strictly in violation. I guess the NeXTanswers are in violation, too. What is
the law and what are the rules? Who makes the call? What are the
repercussions of violations?
If there are going to be so many restrictions against commercial usage of the
internet, then I guess I'd rather not have the gov't get involved (anymore that
they already are).
Charles.
-becoming increasingly Libertarian
--
Charles Lloyd cll...@GLeap.sccsi.com
GiantLeap Software
(713) 292-2442 or 363-0887 (Hou) (713) 363-0936 (fax)
Marcus Daniels
>Nathan F. Janette writes
>> My even greater concern is that such illegal commercial
>> Internet usage will have significant negative impact on the future
>> operations of the various networks. How long will such behavior be
>> unnoticed and not addressed as the folks in DC begin to look into the
>> "data super highway"?
Actually, the `folks in DC' would probaby advocate more commericial
usage. My concern, is that USENET will disappear as other inexpensive
options appear -- and that those other options will be policed by
individuals with less idealistic intentions and tolerance.
Did anyone here the report on NPR that refered to internet users as
`Pampered Elite'?
>First, it's not advertising space. They're not advertisements. It's just
>information. Cliff's and David Pollak's postings consistenly offer more
>valuable information, and are probably appreciated by more readers, than
>your ivory-tower flames. I repeat: this is a consensus-driven forum, and
>you have been repeatedly outvoted on this very issue by huge margins.
I mostly agree with Glenn, the `advertisements' by folks around here
are pretty low key. On .advocacy or .software it would be odd if
available products couldn't be discussed. Does it have to be all
or nothing?
>> Nathan "USENET" Janette
>I think you should take "USENET" out of your signature until you understand
>what it is and how it works, and has worked for 20 years, which is probably
>longer than you've been using computers.
Take a deep breath....Relax..
Peter Kron
It's a vicious cycle...NEXTSTEP is expensive, both in
hardware and software, and fragile in terms of supported
peripherals. Both of these facts lose lots of potential
tire-kickers. As a result, app developers have a small
market and have to charge high prices, which further
discourages buyers. (Windows apps are migrating to the $100
level with specials/competitive upgrades, while NEXTSTEP
apps still look for $400-$800--in spite of a far better
development environment.) Any perceived bugginess makes
matters still worse.
So the buyers are institutional--those who have massive
development budgets and can justify NEXTSTEP through
measurable decreases in those budgets--but they are
primarily interested in custom-app seats, not general
purpose apps.
It reminds me somewhat of OS/2 four years ago...much
superior to alternative (Windows 2.1 at the time), but
expensive, not many apps, limited drivers. OS/2 seems to
have slowly gained a viable following, but still has few
native shrinkwrap apps opting instead for Windows
compatibility. I hope NEXTSTEP can do the same and build
itself up to the millions of seats, but app developers will
have the same problem--competing with Windows apps. How many
NEXTSTEP spreadsheet sales will be lost when EXCEL comes
bundled with the PC and Quattro is available for $50?
The current strategy seems to be support of the
institutional users in hopes of a large enough number of
seats down the line to revitalize the app market. But I
don't think that will happen soon (unfortunately)...
---
NeXTMail:Peter...@corona.com
Corona Design, Inc.
P.O. Box 51022
Seattle, WA 98115-1022
Scott Anguish
> In article <2889s5$f...@digifix.digifix.com> sang...@digifix.com (Scott
> Anguish) writes:
> > c...@ardi.com writes
> > > to ride out bigger storms than ever before. Flying model
> > > helicopters in Hurricane Gloria was a blast!]
>
> > Flying model heli's on a CALM day is a blast! Flying model heli's in a
> > Hurricane is nuts! :-)
>
> I think he meant:
>
> "being a NeXTSTEP only software house" == "Flying model heli's in a
hurricane"
>
> Is that what you meant Cliff?
>
Darcy...
Nope. He actually meant flying Model Heli's in a hurricane! Although
I'll let Cliff tell the whole story.
Oh Cliff....
--
- Scott Anguish -
sang...@digifix.com (NextMail)
next-a...@digifix.com (comp.sys.next.announce submissions)
Eric M Hermanson
>In article <28dmhd$q...@deneva.sdd.trw.com> tho...@spf.trw.com (Mark Thomsen) writes:
>It reminds me somewhat of OS/2 four years ago...much
>superior to alternative (Windows 2.1 at the time), but
>expensive, not many apps, limited drivers. OS/2 seems to
>have slowly gained a viable following, but still has few
>native shrinkwrap apps opting instead for Windows
>compatibility. I hope NEXTSTEP can do the same and build
>itself up to the millions of seats, but app developers will
>have the same problem--competing with Windows apps. How many
>NEXTSTEP spreadsheet sales will be lost when EXCEL comes
>bundled with the PC and Quattro is available for $50?
A very thoughtful post, but I don't think NEXTSTEP will have the same problems
OS/2 had competing with Windows. First of all, the advantages of NS apps over
Windows apps are much more clear than the advantages of OS/2 over Windows.
The big advantage lies in the object-orientedness of most NS apps, i.e.,
drag and drop, object-linking, distributed object-linking, distributed object
computing, and soon, an object-oriented "file" system.
Secondly, in the time it takes NEXTSTEP to achieve "millions of users,"
it will be competing with something totally new - Cairo. Both Cairo and
NEXTSTEP will offer Windows compatibility, so the competition will not be at
that level anymore. The competition will lie in who has the better object
oriented approach. And from the looks of it, NEXTSTEP, if nothing else, has
at least a three year head start. If you really think that Windows is the
end all of all end all's (which most trade magazines seem to think), then by
logical extension, Microsoft is completely and utterly wasting their time
with Cairo.
Eric Hermanson
Matthew Dillon
>Nathan F. Janette writes
>>these groups. My even greater concern is that such illegal commercial
>
>If it is illegal, then is it illegal to use email for commercial usage? Is all
>internet bandwidth consumption prohibited from commercial usage? If so, I
>If there are going to be so many restrictions against commercial usage of the
>
>Charles.
>-becoming increasingly Libertarian
>--
> Charles Lloyd cll...@GLeap.sccsi.com
> GiantLeap Software
> (713) 292-2442 or 363-0887 (Hou) (713) 363-0936 (fax)
You guys are missing a big point as to what the Internet is and is not.
Specifically, the internet is NOT a single commercial entity. It is
a conglomeration of entities such as colleges, businesses, research
institutions, network providers, and more.
The problem isn't whether advertising is illegal -- there are no
particular laws saying what we can and cannot use the internet for
in that regard. No, the problem is that when people abuse the
internet these various entities say "Why should we pay for this?" and
start pruning what their routers will pass through.
There are two ways to do this:
* Packet/Protocol/Port level pruning
* Admin level pruning (such as not passing a newsgroup)
We MUST give these entities the ability to prune such things as
advertisements if they don't want to carry them, and that means
PUTTING ADVERTISEMENTS IN A SEPARATE GROUP SO THE COMMERCIAL
ENTITY CAN TURN OFF THE GROUP RATHER THEN TURN OFF ALL GROUPS.
So while you are not likely to be hit with a lawsuit if you advertise,
you are responsible to the net as a whole. Frankly, I want to keep
my connectivity, thank you, so advertising should be moved to groups
created for such.
-Matt
Philip McDunnough
[RE the net and commercial use...
>
>You consistenly refuse to be told that this is not illegal. At worst it
>stretches the overall guidelines for USENET, but the more immediate
>guidelines for USENET are that it is a consensus-driven enterprise with
>no central authority. You have your opinions on its use, but they are
>only opinions. It is true that certain (very few) backbone sites still
>have restrictions placed on them by the DoD about carrying commercial
>traffic, but that is an issue for those backbone sites, not an issue for
>USENET at large. The guidelines for any newsgroup are set by those who
>are its constituents, and any site that is not comfortable with a given
>newsgroup need not carry it, if it is in violation of some of its own
>principles (as with many of the alt.* groups). USENET != Internet.
[ ]
>First, it's not advertising space. They're not advertisements. It's just
>information. Cliff's and David Pollak's postings consistenly offer more
>valuable information, and are probably appreciated by more readers, than
>your ivory-tower flames. I repeat: this is a consensus-driven forum, and
>you have been repeatedly outvoted on this very issue by huge margins.
[ ]
>I think you should take "USENET" out of your signature until you understand
>what it is and how it works, and has worked for 20 years, which is probably
>longer than you've been using computers.
The use of the Internet for commercial purposes is an issue, and Nathan is
not totally out of hand in being worried about it. The "Usenet" may be
evolving towards a more commercial version, and we all know that there
are abuses of the system. However I must tell you that many research people
do not want the Internet to become a commercial highway (within reason). It
is not just a few DoD sites that are affected. There are many feeds into
university departments that simply refuse to carry newsgroups that overdo
matters on the commercial side. For the most part these go undiscovered as
few faculty members bother to read these groups. However, when it comes time
to request a feed, attention is drawn to the particular newsgroup. At that
point if every other message is an ad you can be sure of the result of the
request.
I have been in favour of publishing prices,along with product descriptions,
in these groups. Virtually everyone is supportive of that provided it
remains reasonable.
As for how the Usenet works, that may very well be one of the mysteries of
life. However, I do know how my site works when I request a newsfeed, and
I have been using computers since before you probably started grade 1. That
doesn't imply I know more, can program, etc...It is, in a sense, a pointless
comment in the same vain as your "20 year" one.
Commercial use of the Internet is a touchy point, and many people do not
want the Internet to be a BBS carrier.
> Glenn Reid NeXTmail: gl...@rightbrain.com
--
Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
phi...@utstat.toronto.edu
[Where sheep may safely graze...]
Gary Longsine
Peter...@corona.com writes:
|> It reminds me somewhat of OS/2 four years ago...much
|> superior to alternative (Windows 2.1 at the time), but
|> expensive, not many apps, limited drivers. OS/2 seems to
|> have slowly gained a viable following, but still has few
|> native shrinkwrap apps opting instead for Windows
|> compatibility. I hope NEXTSTEP can do the same and build
|> itself up to the millions of seats]
Exactly. How did OS/2 get up to its present (though
disputed) figure of a few million installed units?
By giving it away. The thing is cheap. In order for NeXT to
survive, it must gain a market share. To do that it must
write drivers for all kinds of 486 hardware and sell the
User NeXTSTEP as cheaply as it can. Make money later.
Survive Now.
Developers out to be worried about the (alleged) sales goal
of 100,000 NeXTSTEP user editions in 1994. The goal ought to
be ten times that.
ONE MILLION NeXTSTEP seats by the end of 1994.
Otherwise, there is no market for anything but a handful of apps
and a handful of consultants.
Give it away or it will die. Microsoft did the same thing with
windows -- bundled it with machines for $20 or some such garbage.
If microsoft was a japanese company, this would be considered
DUMPING, and would be a violation of US law.
NeXT can't afford to give it away for free, but they can
certainly sell USER NeXTSTEP at cost.
------------------------
Gary W. Longsine NeXTSTEP IS NOW.
lo...@ncc.centel.com DOS is dead.
Windows? No, Thanks.
/* My opinions do not represent those of Centel.
Any similarities between my statments and actual
persons, places or events is intentional, although
perhaps improbable. */
Marcus Daniels
> We MUST give these entities the ability to prune such things as
> advertisements if they don't want to carry them, and that means
> PUTTING ADVERTISEMENTS IN A SEPARATE GROUP SO THE COMMERCIAL
> ENTITY CAN TURN OFF THE GROUP RATHER THEN TURN OFF ALL GROUPS.
So can developers publicly comment on questions in comp.sys.next.software about
their product? What exactly comprises an advertisement?
The Internet and USENET are gaining popularity all the time. Less
carriers are going to be so apt to turn it off just because they find
this or that article offensive. USENET isn't a democracy, and this
is certainly evident in the lack of tolerance people display.
Nathan F. Janette
(Matthew Dillon) writes:
> * Admin level pruning (such as not passing a newsgroup)
>
> We MUST give these entities the ability to prune such things as
> advertisements if they don't want to carry them, and that means
> PUTTING ADVERTISEMENTS IN A SEPARATE GROUP SO THE COMMERCIAL
> ENTITY CAN TURN OFF THE GROUP RATHER THEN TURN OFF ALL GROUPS.
That doesn't seem to be good enough for any of the ISVs that post their
commercials in these newsgroups. The group biz.next.newprod has
existed for over a year, and hasn't been used that I've seen, even when I
explicitly pointed offenders to it both publicly and privately.
It is, however, exactly the correct solution.
Nathan F. Janette
writes:
> First, it's not advertising space. They're not advertisements. It's just
> information.
Thanks for sharing this self deceit, it's quite enlightening.
If people want information, they can read the announce group, or call/fax/
email the vendor.
c...@ardi.com
There's was both allegory and truth to my helicopter comment. It turns
out that I *did* fly model helicopters during Hurricane Gloria (although
real cheap .049" jobbies with *no controls*), but actually ARDI is prepared
to ride out potentially worse NEXTSTEP storms than what we've seen before.
Please. I'm not predicting such things, just acknowledging that we'll
soon have a cash cow that we can milk no matter what.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
>In article <CEB6E...@cobra.cs.unm.edu> c...@ardi.com writes:
>> In article <1993Oct2.0...@cs.yale.edu> nat...@laplace.csb.yale.edu
>(Nathan F. Janette) writes:
>> ....
>> >Nathan not only threatens, but has carried out boycotts of vendors that
>> >post commercial advertisements to Usenet newsgroups. Nathan feels
>> >that Usenet may be in danger of losing some of it's transport networks
>> >due to commercial misusage, and he doesn't care to let that happen if
>> >possible. Usenet is far to valuable a resource to many people to allow
>> >commercials ruin it. Commercials belong in the biz.* groups, nowhere
>> >else. Read the Usenet usage guidelines for more information.
>>
>> Good for Nathan. However, I've never seen the specifics associated with
>> the boycotts, even though my company may have been one of those boycotted.
>> By my definition, I've never posted a commercial advertisement on the net.
>> Perhaps Nathan disagrees with me, but by being secretive about it, he only
>> leads me to conclude that he's an autocrat.
>
>More likely I'm being a good consumer. Perhaps by your definition your
>haven't posted any commercials, but I don't think that's a very honest
>assessment. You've constantly posted long descriptions of your
>product for well over a year.
And the *only* complaint I got was from you. However, I have gotten a
bunch of mail thanking me for posting. I'm willing to admit that
perhaps my judgement is skewed. Are you? Go ahead, ask others what
they think of my posts. You claim they're commercial, but you don't
reproduce one, nor do you even mention that many times my posts are
explicit refutations of other peoples larger than life claims for Executor.
>I suppose if I were an ISV, and I thought that "someone" had made all this
>wonderful "free" advertising space available to me, and someone else
>told me that I'm not supposed to be using it, I'd be snippy too. Not.
^^^^^^
...
>You see, I do consult for an ISV, and we have no problem obeying the usage
>guidelines of these groups, so I have little tolerance for those of
>weaker self control. We'd like lots of free advertising too, but not
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>if we have to steal it.
^^^^^^^^
...
>Nathan "USENET" Janette
>PPP link from hilbert.csb.yale.edu
>
>Please reply to: nat...@laplace.csb.yale.edu (NeXT)
Oh, I see. I'm dishonest, snippy, have weak self control and I steal.
I'm still waiting. Who are you boycotting and for whom do you speak?
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
>>Nathan F. Janette writes
>>>these groups. My even greater concern is that such illegal commercial
>>>..
>>
>>If it is illegal, then is it illegal to use email for commercial usage? Is all
>>internet bandwidth consumption prohibited from commercial usage? If so, I
>>...
>>If there are going to be so many restrictions against commercial usage of the
>>...
>>
>>Charles.
>>-becoming increasingly Libertarian
>>--
>> Charles Lloyd cll...@GLeap.sccsi.com
>> GiantLeap Software
>> (713) 292-2442 or 363-0887 (Hou) (713) 363-0936 (fax)
>
> You guys are missing a big point as to what the Internet is and is not.
>
> Specifically, the internet is NOT a single commercial entity. It is
> a conglomeration of entities such as colleges, businesses, research
> institutions, network providers, and more.
> So while you are not likely to be hit with a lawsuit if you advertise,
> you are responsible to the net as a whole. Frankly, I want to keep
> my connectivity, thank you, so advertising should be moved to groups
> created for such.
>
> -Matt
Well Nathan seems particularly upset at ARDI and Athena. I have not
ever placed what I consider commercials in any Usenet group. My
standards are always 1) is this/are these the appropriate groups and 2)
would this information be appropriate to the discussion at hand. The
exceptions to #2 are my posts to comp.sys.next.announce, where I don't
post to follow-up a topic per-se, but to follow-up the charter of the
newsgroup.
One of the most common situations is people will be debating the
various OSs out there and someone will mention that Executor will run
Mac programs. I then post specifically to show what Executor will and
*won't do*. I even encourage people to use our competitor's product
(Soft-PC) if they are running on PC hardware and want to run Word or
Excel.
The point is yes, I have a vested interest in ARDI. I always make that
clear. However, I am the world's foremost expert on Executor and there
are a lot of misconceptions surrounding our product. It's more common
for people to think it can do more than it currently can, but if
someone posts and claims that Executor has a particular restriction
that it doesn't have, I'll correct that post too.
I'm not trying to push the envelope. Heck, in a very short time, our
NEXT business will account for a small fraction of our overall
business, but I'll continue to be active in the NEXT community,
including clearing up Executor misconceptions. BTW, I also help out in
non-Executor ways too, although frequently that's done by e-mail.
I've decided to try to pry the specifics of Nathan's boycott out into
the open so that *others* can decide how appropriate his boycott is.
I'm not opposed to boycotts; I participate in them when I feel it's
appropriate. Boycotts make a lot of sense when a given action *isn't*
illegal; if it were illegal, just call the cops. However, Nathan's
boycotts seem more a personal matter than anything else. If he really
believes his case and he wants to make a stand, why not do so publicly?
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
...
>The use of the Internet for commercial purposes is an issue, and Nathan is
>not totally out of hand in being worried about it.
I certainly have no problems with Nathan being concerned with
commercial use of the net. I just do not believe that my posts fall in
that category per-se. I have to put a little clarification there,
because I do correct misundertandings that appear on
comp.sys.next.advocacy, and by definition, c.s.n.a is one big
commercial for NeXT, no?
>Commercial use of the Internet is a touchy point, and many people do not
>want the Internet to be a BBS carrier.
No objections. I don't even mind Nathan's boycott per-se, it's just
that by not doing it in public, it's not being subjected to peer
review. I strongly believe that if the specifics of his boycott were
released, he'd get many more people chastising him than praising him.
Nathan has no trouble impugning my actions; I only wish that he would
allow his own judgement to be scrutinized by his fellow net
inhabitants.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
>In article <13...@rtbrain.rightbrain.com> gl...@rightbrain.com (Glenn Reid)
>writes:
>
>> First, it's not advertising space. They're not advertisements. It's just
>> information.
>
>Thanks for sharing this self deceit, it's quite enlightening.
>
>If people want information, they can read the announce group, or call/fax/
>email the vendor.
Duh.
Just like if they want to know your opinion, they can call/FAX/email you, no?
There's no service provided by the net that can't be replaced by calls, FAXs
and e-mail, right?
NOTE: My posts usually contain either factual information that is relevant
to an existing conversation, an explanation of something from a
potentially unique perspective, or a bit of humor to lighten things
up. This thread being the exception that proves the rule, I don't
participate in flame wars. I try to maintain a high signal to noise
ratio and even get atta-boys from lurkers for the clarity and honesty
of my posts.
Please reproduce in entirety a single advertisement that I or my company
has placed on the net.
Please answer the questions:
Who do you/have boycott?
Specifically for which post(s)?
Who does your boycott represent?
What is necessary to get off your boycott?
You have no problem throwing around charges of dishonesty. If you
really are fighting the good fight, then why don't you make the
specifics of your boycott public? I still don't know if you ever
boycotted ARDI. I have never received even a scrap of e-mail saying
that we are a target of your ill-defined boycott. Judging from your
most recent posts, if anyone is being boycotted, it would be ARDI and
Athena. Judging from past posts it would be RightBrain.
Perhaps scallywags would prefer being denounced behind closed doors,
but I would like my accusers to do so in public. Specifically, which
posts were objected to, or are we boycotted because I would challenge the
specifics of your boycott?
BTW, your reluctance to mention the particular ISV for whom you consult
does not make people think you're more honest, but it does make it hard
to tell when you have ulterior motives, unstated allegiances
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
Royce Howland
>In article <1993Sep29.0...@splunge.uucp> ro...@splunge.uucp (Royce Howland) writes:
>>Of the software I own that hasn't been killed yet, TTYDSP hasn't
>>worked for months despite several upgrades to the app and really
>>good email support from Yrrid (although how good can support be if
>>it doesn't correct problems?);
> Royce,
> Our email correspondance on your TTYDSP problems were halted
> mid-stream when you left for vacation a month and a half ago
> and we have not received any followup. We would like to work
> with you on resolving the problem you are having with TTYDSP.
> We do not have any record of your purchase and no warranty card
> was sent in. If you could return the warranty card with your
> personal information we will send you a new adaptor which, upon
> reflection, might be the cause of the problem.
> Sincerely,
> Chris Lloyd
> Yrrid, Inc.
For the net at large, we have taken this matter up in email, and
it appears that things fell apart a bit due to some miscommunication.
(No telling where the warranty card, went, either; I obsessively
return those things for every product I buy.)
Yrrid have been pretty responsive, on the whole, and I feel
confident that my TTYDSP problems will be resolved soon. Thus
I can remove TTYDSP from my pessimistic "everything dies" list.
Thanks to Chris and Yrrid for continuing their support efforts.
--
Royce Howland
Everything is IMHO
ro...@splunge.uucp (NeXTMail OK)
or kakwa!atlantis!splunge!royce
Jim Vlcek
> It's a vicious cycle...(Windows apps are migrating to the $100
> level with specials/competitive upgrades, while NEXTSTEP
> apps still look for $400-$800--in spite of a far better
> How many
> NEXTSTEP spreadsheet sales will be lost when EXCEL comes
> bundled with the PC and Quattro is available for $50?
Trying to compete with Windows applications is an utterly hopeless cause.
Like it or not, right now 16-bit Windows is a de facto pseudocode for desktop
computation. Microsoft's monopoly will probably last long enough to pass
this mantle to 32-bit Windows (Chicago?).
Vendors of alternate platforms _must_ recognize Windows binaries as
pseudocode, and be able to run it effectively. When Windows binaries can be
run seamlessly atop NeXTStep - without making people wish either for native
NeXTStep or Windows, as their individual preferences might lean - then
NeXTStep has a chance on the desktop. Ditto for Unix - I'm looking forward
to trying out Wabi.
The whole game for the vendors of Unix/OS2/NeXTStep/&c must be to make the
plethora of Windows apps work for them, not against them. The day will come
again when native applications will have a chance - first, we've got to rid
the temple of the thieves, however.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Vlcek Information Foundation UnixWare ($166; sa...@if.com)
uunet!molly!vlcek + PrimeTime Freeware SDK ($60, p...@cfcl.com)
Beautiful downtown St. Paul = A better NT than NT (costs less, too!)
Michael S. Barthelemy
> Nathan F. Janette writes
>
> > My even greater concern is that such illegal commercial
> > Internet usage will have significant negative impact on the future
> > operations of the various networks. How long will such behavior be
> > unnoticed and not addressed as the folks in DC begin to look into the
> > "data super highway"?
>
> You consistenly refuse to be told that this is not illegal. At worst it
> stretches the overall guidelines for USENET, but the more immediate
> guidelines for USENET are that it is a consensus-driven enterprise with
> no central authority. You have your opinions on its use, but they are
> only opinions. It is true that certain (very few) backbone sites still
> have restrictions placed on them by the DoD about carrying commercial
> traffic, but that is an issue for those backbone sites, not an issue for
> USENET at large. The guidelines for any newsgroup are set by those who
> are its constituents, and any site that is not comfortable with a given
> newsgroup need not carry it, if it is in violation of some of its own
> principles (as with many of the alt.* groups). USENET != Internet.
Acutually, from the way I understand the overall situation: NSFNet, which
makes up a large part of the Internet backbone is "non-commercial." Thus
it spreads the limitation to news articles because they are carried over
it in some situations. (Usually to Universities which are connected via
NSFNet.)
The NSF has been looking to get out of the Internet backbone business for
over a year now. In relation the "data super highway" is much more likely
to come about by commercial ventures than the government. They're just a
little too late. TCI cable, SPRINTNET, PSINET, Tymnet, and others are
already jumping head first at the chance of being the major contender in
this area. The NSF does want to create a high speed network for
scientific use in reasearch of new computer science technologies.
Universities which are not connected to this new network sponsered by the
NSF will then have to go to commercial Internet service providers to
obtain Internet access or not have Internet access at all.
> > Nathan "USENET" Janette
>
> I think you should take "USENET" out of your signature until you
> understand what it is and how it works, and has worked for 20 years,
> which is probably longer than you've been using computers.
Unfortunately for Nathan; NathanNet is going to dissapear and be replaced
by the fully-commercial internet backbone. The limitations will disappear
for commercial posts but I would not be shocked if quite a few other
limitations did appear such as newsgroups being banned. (alt.sex.*
because of lawsuit potential for instance.) We will also see site and
user authentication become very important in the new order as business
will need the capability of legally binding people by their e-mail.
Personally I can't wait for the backbone to become fully commercial.
Finally on the point of boycots: In a market as small as we are if
someone boycots a product they are doing serious damage to the rest of us.
I would be incredibly annoyed by anyone who would do such a damaging thing
to my beloved OS of choice.
Mike
P.S. Information on the NSF in this post is not because of any insider
knoledge. I have been very interested in opening a public access Internet
site for quite a while now and have been researching what the NSF plans to
do because it could seriously affect such an idea. Other newsgroups have
periodically had discussions about the NSF and its goals, which I have
distilled in this post.
+-----------------+-------------------------------+
| Mike Barthelemy | NEXTSTEP Developer |
| m...@its.com | Graphics & Imaging Specialist |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+
--
+-----------------+-------------------------------+
| Mike Barthelemy | NEXTSTEP Developer |
| m...@its.com | Graphics & Imaging Specialist |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+
Matthew Dillon
>dil...@moonshot.west.oic.com (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>
>> We MUST give these entities the ability to prune such things as
>So can developers publicly comment on questions in comp.sys.next.software about
>their product? What exactly comprises an advertisement?
That's an easy one: If it's a product (rather then, say, a one-time T-shirt
offer), AND you name a price, then it's an advertisement. Technical help
and feature lists do not count with that definition.
It is the conservative definition that most people accept.
>The Internet and USENET are gaining popularity all the time. Less
>carriers are going to be so apt to turn it off just because they find
>this or that article offensive. USENET isn't a democracy, and this
>is certainly evident in the lack of tolerance people display.
>
Many sites only carry what their aggregate users want.. my primary newsfeed
works that way, for example. It scans people's newsrc and retrieves the
aggregate of the listed groups. When a new group is added, it gets the
last week or so of backlog after it is requested for the first time.
Most of the people on these subnets can generally come to a consensus
as to whether they want advertisements or not. Not suprisingly, many
people DO Want to hear about new products, but on a newsgroup devoted
to it, NOT in a general topic group. In the same manner, a lot of smaller
subnets may take the NeXT groups minus advocacy. Subgrouping also
reduces the size of archives... who wants to archive advertisements that
are likely to be out of date a month from now?
Therefore, the more we split up the topics into reasonable subtopics, the
less bandwidth we consume on the minor networks. The major networks
usually carry everything (too many people, the aggregate winds up being
all the groups and it's easier just to maintain a feed of everything),
but us minor networks reap a huge benefit from better organization of
newsgroups.
-Matt
Alex Currier
(Matthew Dillon) writes:
(Discussion of subgrouping and advertisements omitted for brevity)
From a strictly commercial point of view this would be unacceptable. What good
is it to advertise if all the ads must go into specific subgroups which could
all too easily be dropped? A commercially funded internet would be a lot like
broadcast television with ads placed liberally throughout the net to help pay
for the services (or services provided to get you to read the ads, however you
choose to look at it). If suddenly all television ads were relegated to the
"Advertisement Channel" I would wager large money that most people would
choose not to watch the ads. Some who desire information might watch but the
vast majority of media consumers would quickly and happily remove the channel
from their TV tuner programming. For a commercial internet to work ads would
have to have free distribution. Ugh, I can see it already and it's making me
sick. Commercially funded internet and the pervasive advertising which would
result would choke the life out of this medium like it almost has for
television and radio. I would rather pay for it through taxes or right out of
my pocket on a per use basis.
By the way, does anyone recall a few months back when there was talk of
opening up the sky to advertising? Giant orbiting radiant bill boards would
fill the skies with ads and product images. How about a geo-stationary Coke
billboard ten times the relative size of the moon? How about a hundred of them
lighting up the night sky?
--
========================================================================
Alex Currier |
myc...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | Klatu Verata Necktie
NeXTmail capable! |
========================================================================
c...@ardi.com
>>dil...@moonshot.west.oic.com (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>>
>>> We MUST give these entities the ability to prune such things as
>>>..
>>So can developers publicly comment on questions in comp.sys.next.software about
>>their product? What exactly comprises an advertisement?
>
> That's an easy one: If it's a product (rather then, say, a one-time T-shirt
> offer), AND you name a price, then it's an advertisement. Technical help
> and feature lists do not count with that definition.
That's an easy one: If it's a product AND you name it, then it's an
advertisement.
That's an easy one: If it's a product AND you name a shipping date, then
it's an advertisement.
That's an easy one: If it's a product AND you name a country of manufacture,
then it's an advertisement.
That's an easy one: If it's a product AND you name a feature set,
then it's an advertisement.
That's an easy one: If it's a product AND you name a corporate phone number,
then it's an advertisement.
That's an easy one: If it's a product AND you name a corporate address,
then it's an advertisement.
That's an easy one: If it's a product AND you name dealer,
then it's an advertisement.
QUESTION: What make's Mat's criterion distinct from the other criteria I
provide above? No peeking.
ANSWER: The majority of _ads_ in NeXTWORLD don't include a price.
I'm basing this on looking at the first few pages of the October issue of
NeXTWORLD. Inside Cover: Lighthouse, no mention of price.
Page 2: Avavnet Computer, no mention of price.
Page 2: VNP Software, no mention of price.
Page 3: DBSA, no mention of price.
Page 4: Contemporary Cybernetics, no mention of price.
I did not rig this issue of NeXTWORLD to meet my claims. The simple fact
is, price is just another piece of information about a product. It is a
piece of information that many people want to know. However, in general, it
is not part of an advertisement.
I have, when I thought it appropriate, included the price of Executor in posts
that mention Executor. Most recently was in response to DayDream, about as
competing of a product as is possible for Executor. I mentioned things in
Executor's favor and I mentioned things in DayDream's favor. I pointed out
the price of each, but explicitly said that if you need the degree of
compatibility that DayDream provides, *buy their product*. I can guarantee
that we wouldn't say such a thing in an ad.
Just as presense of price doesn't imply ad, absence of price doesn't imply
not ad, as all the ads in NeXTWORLD show. So now, with this knowledge of
how price doesn't determine what an ad is, we're back to "What exactly
comprises an advertisement". It might be nice to look at a few posts that
some claim are ads and see if a consensus can be reached on the individual
posts before trying to identify what particular aspects move a particular
collection of information into the advertising zone.
> It is the conservative definition that most people accept.
...
Citation? I'm a skeptic. Since I know that your definition is skewed,
it's not surprising that I doubt that most people accept your
definition. But even if I agreed with your definition, I wouldn't say
that most people accept it without *at least* an informal poll.
BTW, If presented with a good reason to avoid mentioning price, I could
easily excercise the "self-restraint" that the majority of advertisers
have excercised in their NeXTWORLD ads. However, I am a capitalist; I
believe that price is a very important aspect of the market and not
something to be feared. I fully understand the reason that people don't
want commercial posts in the c.s.n hierarcy (announce and marketplace
excepted), and I still claim that I have not placed any there. If price
makes or breaks an ad; I'm guilty, but please give a second thought about
the importance of prices, and why they frequently *aren't* present on ads.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
Don Hurter
(Alex Currier) wrote:
> What good
> is it to advertise if all the ads must go into specific subgroups which could
> all too easily be dropped? A commercially funded internet would be a lot like
> broadcast television with ads placed liberally throughout the net to help pay
> for the services (or services provided to get you to read the ads, however you
> choose to look at it). If suddenly all television ads were relegated to the
> "Advertisement Channel" I would wager large money that most people would
> choose not to watch the ads. Some who desire information might watch but the
> vast majority of media consumers would quickly and happily remove the channel
> from their TV tuner programming. For a commercial internet to work ads would
> have to have free distribution. Ugh, I can see it already and it's making me
> sick. Commercially funded internet and the pervasive advertising which would
> result would choke the life out of this medium like it almost has for
> television and radio. I would rather pay for it through taxes or right out of
> my pocket on a per use basis.
I suppose one solution might be to have the ads mixed in, like they are
now, but with some sort of extra field indicating their advertising nature.
Then people and organizations could elect to filter them accordingly,
without affecting the rest of the feed.
There was an interesting article in the 16-SEP-93 issue of the Wall Street
Journal ((Advertising Alert! :-)), page one, titled, "Cyberspace Clash -
Computer users battle high-tech marketers over the soul of Internet". The
article recounts how one business sent out a massive email advertisement,
only to get charred by the Internet community. I think the Net can take
care of itself (for now, anyway).
-- Don
__________________________________________________________________________
When in doubt, bore it out. - Hotrodder's Handbook pp.6
Garance A. Drosehn
> >> So can developers publicly comment on questions in
> >> comp.sys.next.software about their product? What
> >> exactly comprises an advertisement?
> >
> > That's an easy one: If it's a product (rather then, say, a
> > one-time T-shirt offer), AND you name a price, then it's an
> > advertisement. Technical help and feature lists do not count
> > with that definition.
[skipping over lots of lines from Cliff]
> I did not rig this issue of NeXTWORLD to meet my claims. The
> simple fact is, price is just another piece of information about
> a product. It is a piece of information that many people want
> to know. However, in general, it is not part of an advertisement.
[more skipping]
> Just as presense of price doesn't imply ad, absence of price
> doesn't imply not ad, as all the ads in NeXTWORLD show. So now,
> with this knowledge of how price doesn't determine what an ad
> is, we're back to "What exactly comprises an advertisement?".
> It might be nice to look at a few posts that some claim are ads
> and see if a consensus can be reached on the individual posts
> before trying to identify what particular aspects move a particular
> collection of information into the advertising zone.
I doubt a concensus can be reached, as I have enough trouble deciding
for myself what "exactly" comprises an advertisement. I'm also a bit
dubious about the exercise of "exactly" describing an ad, as I'm sure
that all it would do is have some companies do that "and just a little
bit more". It's sort of like "exactly" defining a speed limit on a
highway. As soon as the signs go up saying the speed limit is 65,
then cars start driving 67-70. I'm sure that if we said that any
company could make one post a week for a product without it being
considered an ad, then some companies would make sure they'd post
an article every week for any product that they have or think they
have.
Maybe I'm too cynical due to the junk mail I get via the post
office, or the phone calls I get from people trying to sell me
something. I don't want to see these usenet newsgroups turn
into the equivalent of my mailbox at home.
But anyway, ignoring that, price can most certainly come across as an
advertisement. It can also be nothing more than useful information.
I'm a bit leary of prices showing up, simply because it gives the
company the option of changing their price every two weeks to get
another announcement of their product out. On the other hand, the
price is often useful info for me. Assuming we don't get a new
price announcement every two weeks or something, I like to see
the approx. price of commercial products when they are announced.
Similarly, every single article that mentions a product is (in some
sense) an advertisement for the product. The more the name is seen,
the more people think of it. Clearly we can't go with that draconian
a definition of advertisement for determining what is appropriate for
usenet, but let's not kid ourselves and pretend that companies do not
benefit from the exposure.
The kinds of things that really frost me as being inappropriate
advertising is when the article doesn't really contain any info.
Posting large, attractive tiff files for a product is a pretty
clear advertisement. I don't care if the product can be used to
make large, eye-catching tiff files, the article is an ad. It's
the "feel-good" kind of ad that is so popular in the advertising
industry. Consider TV commercials. How many of them give you
any *info*? Compare that to the number which do little more
than show alluring women or macho he-men in an effort to get you
believing that you'll [turn into] or [be chased by] the kinds
of people the ad is showing if you'd just buy the product.
I don't think that many companies have crossed over that line
in the csn newsgroups, but I certainly get upset (and the
usenet administrator at RPI gets upset) when large images are
showing up in usenet newsgroups simply to make people feel
good about some commercial product.
In any case, I do think that the question of "what is an
advertisement?" is the important one here. I also have a
feeling that in a very real sense my own personal definition
of what is an ad is nearly irrelevant. It's the usenet
administrators that might drop newsgroups (due to *their*
definition of an ad) which is much more significant than
mine.
--
Garance Alistair Drosehn = g...@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Troy NY USA
Nathan F. Janette
writes:
> Finally on the point of boycots: In a market as small as we are if
> someone boycots a product they are doing serious damage to the rest of us.
> I would be incredibly annoyed by anyone who would do such a damaging thing
> to my beloved OS of choice.
1. How is exercising my rights as a consumer damaging your beloved OS?
2. Why do you think another consumer would give a flying fart about what
you want is they have another opinion on that product/vendor?
--
Nathan F. Janette
> You have no problem throwing around charges of dishonesty. If you
> really are fighting the good fight, then why don't you make the
> specifics of your boycott public? I still don't know if you ever
> boycotted ARDI. I have never received even a scrap of e-mail saying
> that we are a target of your ill-defined boycott. Judging from your
> most recent posts, if anyone is being boycotted, it would be ARDI and
> Athena. Judging from past posts it would be RightBrain.
I have clearly defined my opinions and actions over the last few
posts.
It should be clear to you, but obviously isn't judging from the blinders
you are wearing on this issue, that I am not the only person who has a
problem with these advertisements, despite your attempt to
characterize the situation otherwise. I am not the only one posting
opinions contrary to yours, take a look around.
> Perhaps scallywags would prefer being denounced behind closed doors,
> but I would like my accusers to do so in public. Specifically, which
> posts were objected to, or are we boycotted because I would challenge the
> specifics of your boycott?
Such nonsense from an intelligent person. You've obviously worked
yourself into a rage over my opinion and action, and it's reflecting
poorly upon your public posts.
What you would like, and how I choose to affect change my well be
different. In this case, I've welcomed your call for public debate
on the topic, and have answered it, although frankly the volume
of your posted "questions" is difficult to keep up with.
> BTW, your reluctance to mention the particular ISV for whom you consult
> does not make people think you're more honest, but it does make it hard
> to tell when you have ulterior motives, unstated allegiances
You speak for yourself only, not for "people".
My consulting relationship has nothing to do with this issue, and
therefore I won't allow it to be dragged into it.
If it makes you feel better, I don't compete with any of the ISVs I've
posted about in any way that I'm aware.
Marcus Daniels
For God, Country, and USENET... or something like that..
ho hum.
c...@ardi.com
...
>
>In any case, I do think that the question of "what is an
>advertisement?" is the important one here. I also have a
>feeling that in a very real sense my own personal definition
>of what is an ad is nearly irrelevant. It's the usenet
>administrators that might drop newsgroups (due to *their*
>definition of an ad) which is much more significant than
>mine.
I absolutely agree. Nathan has publicly stated that he has already
conducted boycotts based on inapropriate postings to newsgroups.
Although I have received one letter of *warning* from Nathan, I've never
received a letter stating that we were being boycotted, nor have I seen
any of the terms of the alleged boycotts.
I've been reading the net long enough to know that in all sorts of
newgroups there are people who post outrageous claims (Yow! I invented
skydiving in 1989!) and never respond with the specifics when asked for
citations or references. It strongly looks like Nathan's boycotts
inhabit this imaginary world. He has yet to come forth and say who he
has boycotted, for what reason, for what duration and who his boycott
represents.
My conclusion that Nathan's boycotts are figmentary is based on the
fact that apprently ARDI and Athena are the worst offenders in Nathan's
mind, yet ARDI has never received a letter notifying that we're being
boycotted. So who has been boycotted? Athena? I think Nathan just
spouts. It's always easy to send e-mail, or post a note, writing a
letter and signing your name is much harder work than typing a few
characters on a keyboard.
I'm off my soapbox. I've given people ample chance to criticize my use
of the net, and all I've gotten were atta-boys. One good thing to come
of this though was a new nickname. I never had a nickname as a kid,
and now Nathan has been so kind as to bestow one on me. This puts me
in the same exhalted category as Harry "Snapper" Organs and Bill "Uncle
Bobo" Graham. Unfortunately my wife doesn't like my new nickname and
has threatened violence to anyone who would call me by it in public.
Double bad violence if you call her Fifi, but don't tell her I gave you
the idea. Still, "Hey Snippy, let me buy you a beer" has a nice ring
to it.
[Sorry for the blatant advertising of my penchant for free beer, and if
you're wondering what "IcAra Inscihr Mfmbslc IooaiBhDtt" means, you're
reading the wrong post.]
--Snippy
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
>In article <1993Oct4.1...@its.com> m...@its.com (Michael S. Barthelemy)
>writes:
>
>> Finally on the point of boycots: In a market as small as we are if
>> someone boycots a product they are doing serious damage to the rest of us.
>> I would be incredibly annoyed by anyone who would do such a damaging thing
>> to my beloved OS of choice.
>
>1. How is exercising my rights as a consumer damaging your beloved OS?
Gosh Nathan, I guess until you tell us the details of your boycott,
we'll never know. Are you claiming the boycott was a personal one, or
one that involved Yale's money? I actually agree with the concept of
boycotting practioners of inappropriate practice, although when I do
so, I let the boycotted party/parties know what's up and I clear it with
my superiors first.
>2. Why do you think another consumer would give a flying fart about what
>you want is they have another opinion on that product/vendor?
Hmmm, perhaps Michael got high marks in "plays well with others" and
naturally assumed everyone else did too.
[Aside to Michael, A good explanation of why Nathan hasn't provided details
of his boycotts is that they never existed. I wouldn't worry too much about
non-existent boycotts hurting our community. Actually, judging from my e-mail
they seem to bring out a sense of comraderie]
--Snippy
c...@ardi.com
c...@ardi.com
>In article <CEErw...@cobra.cs.unm.edu> c...@ardi.com writes:
>
>> You have no problem throwing around charges of dishonesty. If you
>> really are fighting the good fight, then why don't you make the
>> specifics of your boycott public? I still don't know if you ever
>> boycotted ARDI. I have never received even a scrap of e-mail saying
>> that we are a target of your ill-defined boycott. Judging from your
>> most recent posts, if anyone is being boycotted, it would be ARDI and
>> Athena. Judging from past posts it would be RightBrain.
>
>I have clearly defined my opinions and actions over the last few
>posts.
Our news feed must have lost them. I have yet to see a single instance
of a boycott that you have participated in. As President of ARDI I
have absolutely no idea if you are currently boycotting ARDI, and if so,
for what reason, or how long the boycott is to remain in effect, or what
ARDI needs to do to stop the boycott.
>It should be clear to you, but obviously isn't judging from the blinders
>you are wearing on this issue, that I am not the only person who has a
>problem with these advertisements, despite your attempt to
>characterize the situation otherwise. I am not the only one posting
>opinions contrary to yours, take a look around.
I guess our news feed is acting up again. Could you please provide the
Message-ID of a single post that has specifically objected to any of my
posts? As far as I can tell, you are the only one who has singled out
ARDI and ctm. Still, strange things happen on usenet; Glenn apparently
can't receive Mark Crispin's posts, so all I ask is a single Message-ID
so that I can verify that you're not just funnin' me.
Could you do that for me please? If not, do you understand why I doubt you?
>> BTW, your reluctance to mention the particular ISV for whom you consult
>> does not make people think you're more honest, but it does make it hard
>> to tell when you have ulterior motives, unstated allegiances
>
>You speak for yourself only, not for "people".
>
>My consulting relationship has nothing to do with this issue, and
>therefore I won't allow it to be dragged into it.
>
>If it makes you feel better, I don't compete with any of the ISVs I've
>posted about in any way that I'm aware.
Hmmm... Afraid of a boycott perhaps?
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
Alex Blakemore
> If suddenly all television ads were relegated to the
> "Advertisement Channel" I would wager large money that most people would
> choose not to watch the ads.
it exists. people pay to watch it.
--
Alex Blakemore
al...@cs.umd.edu NeXT mail accepted
Glenn Reid
I've been meaning to stay out of this, but I can't :-)
There are a lot of people in the world who seem to hate "ads" for the
same reason that they hate commercials on TV. They've been conditioned
to hate advertising because it interferes with their enjoyment of
other things (watching television, reading magazines). On USENET,
there is some of that, too, but the entire medium is inherently noisy,
so the so-called "ads" don't detract much. In fact, in my opinion,
they actually add value to these newsgroups. I'd much rather read
some actual product information than a silly flame, of which there
are many, as you know.
Cliff recently reduced the "if you mention product and price" argument
to absurdity by his clearly reasoned response. It's true that much
advertising makes no mention of price. It's irrelevant in many kinds
of advertising. Does Nike mention the price of all their shoe models
in their ads? No. Does NeXT mention system prices in any of their ads?
No. Nobody does.
What's left is a very hazy definition of advertising: what is it?
I offer that advertising is an EXHORTATION to buy a product, or trickery
to get you interested in a product, not simply information about the
product. As long as postings from vendors are clearly identified as
being from those vendors, and as long as the information is presented
candidly and without fanfare or exhortation (as in "Please buy our
product; it's really great!"), then it should be perfectly reasonable.
"Commercial use" is a very difficult thing to define. NeXT employees
supporting their software in comp.sys.next.bugs is always heralded as
a wonderful thing, and announcements from NeXT about the price of upgrades
is met with universal applause, but this is clearly of commercial
advantage to NeXT. The same thing happens in comp.sys.mac, comp.sys.sun,
and every other newsgroup in which vendors participate. But one honest,
forthright, intelligent developer like Cliff, who is careful not to
plug his product too much, gets beat up.
Nathan and Matt: take a long, hard look at yourselves. You've been
incredibly inflexible on this issue for a long time. You've expressed
your views, but you've shown absolutely no signs of compromise, or even
of understanding. In my opinion -- and it's just that -- you're being
pigheaded. I don't mean that as an insult, although you will undoubtedly
take it that way. I mean it literally, and I encourage you to think
about this instead of just reiterating your position again and again.
Nathan, you're at Yale, aren't you? Do they teach you to think and
be reasonable there, or just to repeat dogma?
I, for one, think that Cliff has been enormously patient and extremely
careful and intelligent in his side of the argument, and I know that he
would not have even gotten into this if Nathan hadn't made some attacks
that he has not been willing or able to back up. On the contrary, I
haven't seen either Matt or Nathan (mostly Nathan, to be fair to Matt)
make a point that holds water or that is backed up by anybody else.
I don't have any products to sell you any more, so I can participate more
freely in this discussion than I could in the past :-) But I'm staying
out of it for real now.
Maybe it's time to unsubscribe to these groups for a while and cool out :-)
--
Glenn Reid NeXTmail: gl...@rightbrain.com
RightBrain Software 415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
Palo Alto, California Electronic Frontier Foundation, member #054
Michael Shaler
In article <CEErw...@cobra.cs.unm.edu> c...@ardi.com writes:
> You have no problem throwing around charges of dishonesty. If you
> really are fighting the good fight, then why don't you make the
> specifics of your boycott public? I still don't know if you ever
> boycotted ARDI. I have never received even a scrap of e-mail saying
> that we are a target of your ill-defined boycott. Judging from your
> most recent posts, if anyone is being boycotted, it would be ARDI and
> Athena. Judging from past posts it would be RightBrain.
I have clearly defined my opinions and actions over the last few
posts.
Michaele
> specifics of your boycott public? I still don't know if you ever
> boycotted ARDI. I have never received even a scrap of e-mail saying
> that we are a target of your ill-defined boycott. Judging from your
> most recent posts, if anyone is being boycotted, it would be ARDI and
> Athena. Judging from past posts it would be RightBrain.
I have clearly defined my opinions and actions over the last few
posts.
I agree that there is here a lack of clarity, and you still did not answer the fundamental question
c...@ardi.com
>
>I've been meaning to stay out of this, but I can't :-)
>Nathan and Matt: ...
I just want to say that I although I disagreed with Matt's reasoning
and his conclusion, I have absolutely no problem with Matt's post.
Perhaps he's been harsh in the past, I can't say I've paid much
attention.
I apologize for all the posting I've done on this issue. I was just
surprised to hear Nathan mentioning PasteUp (before it changed hands),
because I assumed he was boycotting RightBrain. That's when it dawned
on me that I have absolutely no details about Nathan's boycott.
Considering my company is one of the two most likely targets for such
an endeavor, it made sense for me to look into the matter. I still
don't know who Nathan has boycotted, for what duration, what is
necessary to avoid the boycott and on whose behalf the boycotts were
run. Nathan has stated that he's done such things, but again he isn't
willing to come forward with the specifics.
Sorry Matt got dragged into this. I enjoy his point of view on a wide
variety of issues. In this case, even though I didn't agree with it, I
was quite willing to look at his metric for deciding whether or not a
post is commercial.
--Cliff
c...@ardi.com
Peter Kron
...
>Nathan not only threatens, but has carried out boycotts of vendors that
>post commercial advertisements to Usenet newsgroups. Nathan feels
>that Usenet may be in danger of losing some of it's transport networks
>due to commercial misusage, and he doesn't care to let that happen if
>possible. Usenet is far to valuable a resource to many people to allow
>commercials ruin it. Commercials belong in the biz.* groups, nowhere
>else. Read the Usenet usage guidelines for more information.
I count more than 20 responses on this thread, which is about 2-3 weeks worth of c.s.n.announce articles! Sort of ironic, that the net is so concerned with junk mail, considering the amount of junk that is not only tolerated on it, but sort of culturally nurtured! :^)
---
NeXTMail:Peter...@corona.com
Corona Design, Inc.
P.O. Box 51022
Seattle, WA 98115-1022
Gregory H. Anderson
We've all been waiting, now that you have so much free time on your
hands... 8^)
> I offer that advertising is an EXHORTATION to buy a product, or trickery
> to get you interested in a product, not simply information about the
> product. As long as postings from vendors are clearly identified as
> being from those vendors, and as long as the information is presented
> candidly and without fanfare or exhortation (as in "Please buy our
> product; it's really great!"), then it should be perfectly reasonable.
ExactlyRight! (Whoops. But I don't own that product. So am I advertising
for my competitor?)
The term advertisers use is "call to action." All ads have an explicit or
implicit call to action:
"Pick up the phone, give us a call."
"Pepsi. Gotta have it."
"Just do it."
But "call to action" is not the only thing that makes a message sound
ad-like. Here's a borderline example similar to USENET: PBS sponsor IDs.
Have you noticed how close they have gotten to advertising? You know why?
Because the only rule left is that they must not include a call to action.
Which is why they used to say:
"Wall $treet Week, with Louis Ruykeyser, is brought to you by Prudential
Securities."
but lately they sound like this:
"Wall $treet Week, with Louis Ruykeyser, is brought to you by Prudential
Securities, which offers a wide range of rock solid, market wise financial
services in more than 1000 offices across the United States."
Sounds like an ad, doesn't it? It even picks up the tag line from their
commercial advertising. But there's no "call to action," so they get away
with it under the guise that they're just providing information about
themselves. Still, I call it advertising, and I no longer subscribe to my
local PBS radio and TV stations for that reason. If they are going to run
ads, they are no longer entitled to my subscription dollars.
Here's a fascinating observation. I can get Philadelphia and Allentown PBS
stations from my home in the northern Philadelphia suburbs. Because it is
in a weaker market, the Allentown station has bowed to pressure for more
ad-like sponsor IDs in order to retain its sponsors. I've seen IDs for
doctor's offices that describe them as "caring physicians" and give hours
of operation (information), but don't come right out and tell you to come
in next time you feel sick (call to action).
Think of Microsoft as Philadelphia, and NeXT as Allentown, and you'll get
the point I'm making.
--
Gregory H. Anderson | "History is the fiction we invent to
Revisionist Autobiographer | persuade ourselves that events are
Anderson Financial Systems | knowable and that life has order and
gr...@afs.com (NeXTmail OK) | direction." -- Calvin & Hobbes, 7/19/93
Garance A. Drosehn
> The term advertisers use is "call to action." All ads have an explicit
> or implicit call to action:
>
> "Pick up the phone, give us a call."
> "Pepsi. Gotta have it."
> "Just do it."
>
> But "call to action" is not the only thing that makes a message sound
> ad-like. Here's a borderline example similar to USENET: PBS sponsor IDs.
> Have you noticed how close they have gotten to advertising? You know why?
> Because the only rule left is that they must not include a call to action.
> Which is why they used to say:
>
> "Wall $treet Week, with Louis Ruykeyser, is brought to you by Prudential
> Securities."
>
> but lately they sound like this:
>
> "Wall $treet Week, with Louis Ruykeyser, is brought to you by Prudential
> Securities, which offers a wide range of rock solid, market wise
> financial services in more than 1000 offices across the United States."
>
> Sounds like an ad, doesn't it? It even picks up the tag line from their
> commercial advertising. But there's no "call to action," so they get away
> with it under the guise that they're just providing information about
> themselves. Still, I call it advertising, and I no longer subscribe to
> my local PBS radio and TV stations for that reason. If they are going
> to run ads, they are no longer entitled to my subscription dollars.
This is very much the analogy.
Note that Nathan's fear is pretty much along the lines of your last
sentance. Usenet is basically subsidized for a lot of us, and the
concern is that those people will also say "If usenet is going to
run these border-line ads, then it's no longer entitled to any
subsidy". There is also the factor of usenet administrators who
will act based on *their* concern over this issue, and will prune
off usenet groups which come too close to advertising for their
comfort.
I do think this is a legitmate issue. I don't jump up and down
about it as much as Nathan is accused of doing, because I really
don't have a good idea of where (or how) to draw the line. I'm
pretty sure I wouldn't draw it at the same place Nathan would
have it drawn, but the issue is still a legitimate concern in my
opinion.
Scott Hess
So have I, but I couldn't resist.
>There are a lot of people in the world who seem to hate "ads" for
>the same reason that they hate commercials on TV. They've been
>conditioned to hate advertising because it interferes with their
>enjoyment of other things (watching television, reading magazines).
>On USENET, there is some of that, too, but the entire medium is
>inherently noisy, so the so-called "ads" don't detract much. In
>fact, in my opinion, they actually add value to these newsgroups.
>I'd much rather read some actual product information than a silly
>flame, of which there are many, as you know.
No wonder you've been so argumentive with Nathan and others - the
above isn't their point, that I can see. Presumably, you pay for
your own Usenet feed. Great. So, if you don't like a group, you
can stop getting it fed. And if you don't mind the advert/commercial
stuff, you can just let it slide.
But, what if someone else pays for your feed and decides that they
don't want to accept certain groups that have too much of a commercial
flavor? Worse, what if the next site upstream decides this and
thus _you_ don't get that group, even though you do pay for your
own feed? Too bad, eh?
I hate to point it out, but probably more groups get dropped because
of their high flame/signal ratio than high advert/signal ratio.
So, you're complaints about Nathan are sort of like the latest trend
for white males to whine because "We get so dumped on because of
this racism/sexism/homophobism/whateverism that really isn't _our_
fault, it's just the society we were born in, don't blame us, we
aren't at fault." Not many groups are dropped due to adverts, so
you have the option to just ignore people like Nathan if you like.
They literally can't stop you from posting whatever you want.
On the other hand, if a group _is_ dropped at some site due to high
adverts, you've no business whining about that, then! [Remember,
Usenet is a _priviledge_, _not_ a right. If you (generic you) screw
things up for a site by posting adverts (or other material) that
causes their Powers That Be to drop that group for their site, you
have no recourse. In that case, your abuse of your priviledge
causes someone else to lose their priviledge. Bad deal.]
>I offer that advertising is an EXHORTATION to buy a product, or
>trickery to get you interested in a product, not simply information
>about the product. As long as postings from vendors are clearly
>identified as being from those vendors, and as long as the
>information is presented candidly and without fanfare or exhortation
>(as in "Please buy our product; it's really great!"), then it
>should be perfectly reasonable.
I agree. But, this is all opinion, and we're differentiating between
shades of gray. Nathan's as justified in his opinion as you or I
are. And his posts seem to have less of a "Why is everybody always
picking on me?" flavor, too.
>"Commercial use" is a very difficult thing to define. NeXT
>employees supporting their software in comp.sys.next.bugs is always
>heralded as a wonderful thing, and announcements from NeXT about
>the price of upgrades is met with universal applause, but this is
>clearly of commercial advantage to NeXT. The same thing happens
>in comp.sys.mac, comp.sys.sun, and every other newsgroup in which
>vendors participate. But one honest, forthright, intelligent
>developer like Cliff, who is careful not to plug his product too
>much, gets beat up.
Who! Stop right there. I suspect Nathan won't mind at _all_ if
Cliff posts adverts and support stuff to comp.emulators.mac.ARDI
or if you post (or had posted) such stuff to comp.dtp.pasteup, or
something of the sort. What do you think the response would be if
a NeXT employee posted advertisements on comp.sys.mac.* (hint:
look at what happens when a Sun/Microsoft/SGI/Whoever employee
posts such on comp.sys.next.*).
Most "support" type posts I've seen on these groups seem to be from
people who are a bit insecure (perhaps justly) about their product
or company. They feel that they need to justify themselves personally
in public otherwise they are getting the raw end of the deal. [Note
that NeXT has _very_ few posts of this sort.] I used to feel this
way, but long ago realized that it really didn't make any difference -
most people out there are surprisingly good at spotting cranks
(those who can't spot cranks aren't all that on the ball, anyhow),
and I could save a lot of time by developing a tough outer skin and
ignoring them. I try to always respond via email to posts asking
questions about or for help with one of my products. Otherwise, I
wait a couple days just to see if someone else won't post a followup
(which, fortunately for me, often happens). Or, worse, I'll post
a post that describes a variety of means of accomplishing the goal -
of which mine may (or may not) be the easiest/slickest/most expensive
(with the main point being that it's not the _only_ solution I'm
presenting - just as if I were an unbiased observer. I think that
Cliff does well in this area, though obviously there aren't all
that many NeXT-only solutions in his market).
>Nathan and Matt: take a long, hard look at yourselves. You've
>been incredibly inflexible on this issue for a long time. You've
>expressed your views, but you've shown absolutely no signs of
>compromise, or even of understanding. In my opinion -- and it's
>just that -- you're being pigheaded. I don't mean that as an
>insult, although you will undoubtedly take it that way. I mean
>it literally, and I encourage you to think about this instead of
>just reiterating your position again and again.
What was that phrase about pots and kettles? Just because you
express your points in a more roundabout and perhaps even eloquent
fashion, you're just as easily tarred with this brush. Compromise
works both ways, you know. Nowadays there is not even the excuse
of "csn.announce doesn't work reliably" to fall back on (Thanks to
the efforts of Scott Anguish ("scotts of the world unite!")).
>Nathan, you're at Yale, aren't you? Do they teach you to think
>and be reasonable there, or just to repeat dogma?
And didn't you just say "I don't mean that as an insult?" Then do
you mean _this_ as an insult? I don't know many people who say
"Gosh, here's a pigheaded idiotic argument, I'm going to put it
forth as my very own." Well, I will sometimes, but not very
seriously. Obviously Nathan thinks he has a valid point that's
important to put forth - otherwise he wouldn't bother.
>I, for one, think that Cliff has been enormously patient and
>extremely careful and intelligent in his side of the argument,
>and I know that he would not have even gotten into this if Nathan
>hadn't made some attacks that he has not been willing or able to
>back up.
I agree.
>On the contrary, I haven't seen either Matt or Nathan (mostly
>Nathan, to be fair to Matt) make a point that holds water or that
>is backed up by anybody else.
I completely disagree. They've both made a number of points that
hold water. Realize that there aren't terribly many people backing
your point of view, either. Again, just because Nathan's a bit
blunt at times doesn't mean that his points aren't valid.
>Maybe it's time to unsubscribe to these groups for a while and
>cool out :-)
Probably. I keep trying ...
I am,
--
scott hess <sc...@nic.gac.edu> <I can handle NeXTMail, but don't like it>
12901 Upton Avenue South, #326 Burnsville, MN 55337 (612) 895-1208 Anytime!
<C++: ... One Language to bring them all and in the darkness bind them>
<In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.>
Rothstein
(Nicolas Dore) writes:
> In article <287j89$d...@digifix.digifix.com> sang...@digifix.com (Scott
> Anguish) writes:
> > Image is a good program, and hopefully someone will pick it up.
>
> Wait a second here.
>
> Doesn't NeXT have something to say about this? Image is basically NeXT's
> Icon.app, written, redesigned and debugged by Keith Olfs first and
Appsoft
> afterwards. Didn't NeXT put conditions on the transfer (Rethorical
question,
> since they did: Appsoft had to ship less than XX days after 3.0 came out
to
> keep the license. I don't know about other stuff that could come into
play here
> - such as "has to be actively supported, blah blah...").
As I recall Keith's sucessor to Icon.app was named Oscar and yes Appsoft
did purchase its source but they rewrote almost everything. Or this is
what they claimed at one time.
-Mont
NeXTmail OK :-)
President CP-NUG (Cal Poly NeXT User Group, SLO)
mrot...@data.acs.calpoly.edu
Nathan F. Janette
> My conclusion that Nathan's boycotts are figmentary is based on the
> fact that apprently ARDI and Athena are the worst offenders in Nathan's
> mind, yet ARDI has never received a letter notifying that we're being
> boycotted. So who has been boycotted? Athena? I think Nathan just
> spouts.
> I'm off my soapbox. I've given people ample chance to criticize my use
> of the net, and all I've gotten were atta-boys.
You either have:
1) Poor Usenet connectivity
2) Trouble reading
3) A profound case of denial
If #1, I suggest a new provider.
If #2, I suggest "Hooked on Phonics"
If #3, I suggest professional assistance.
There have been 35 total articles on this thread, 10 of them yours, 5 of
them mine, and the rest by other posters in smaller groups. At least as
many of those posts have taken you and Glenn to task for your claims as you
two have taken me to task for my claims. Several posts were info queries.
I have clearly stated that I do not speak for Yale. Someone else from Yale
staed that I do not speak for Yale. Perhaps you need it spelled out that I
also, therefore, do not organize boycotts for that organization.
I do, however, make purchasing decisions for a group in a department at
Yale. I do use boycotts and the threat of boycotts in situations that I
feel strongly enough about to forgo otherwise good products,
althought sometimes there are products from another ISV that are just
as good. I have boycotted several NeXT ISVs for posting commercial
advertisements to these groups. Most cases were clearly
acknowledged. Some were and are debatable, as seen by the different
opinions of the many folks involved in this important discussion. I do
not accept the absurd assertion that I must conduct my boycotts your
way, or no way.
Several posters have suggested that proper usage of the group
bix.next.newprod, or another group in that hierarchy by ISVs would let
us all have our cake and eat it too. I share that opinion.
Once again, because it's important to make this distinction: I think all
these ISVs have fine products. It's the behavior of the companies I
disapprove of, not the products.
Alex Currier
<things deleted>
I don't know about the rest of the gawkers but the points have been made to my
satisfaction. I'm afraid this thread is in grave danger of degenerating into
personal attacks and pointless verbal warfare.
Cliff, at this point I don't think you're going to get any answers. At first I
was perfectly willing to respect Nathan's position but he has repeatedly
failed to back it up with any solid information or responses to your simple
and valid questions. I say give up and call it done.
As for boycots in general, I was under the impression that this kind of action
was reserved for near last ditch efforts to redirect the actions of a company,
as hitting them in their wallet is the lowest blow. Ideally one would address
the company with their complaints and humbly request the correction of some
perceived misaction first. Only after the company proves unresponsive or
hostile and completely unwilling to consider redressing their wrongs would
boycot be necessary.
I don't think there are any people "advertising" in this group who would be so
insensitive to even a single complaining voice.