whm.arizona@Rand-Relay (04/15/83)
I find the Unipress license costs a little distressing. I tried calling them up to see what plans for Emacs improvements they have in the near future, but apparently nobody (except a secretary) was in when I called. I was hoping more for costs in the $500/2000 (b/s) range. Since so many source copies are already floating around, it seems unlikely that people are going to be lining up (at least in the near future) to fork out $7000 for a new version with source. I'm wondering if they have any plans to try to get the Mlisp libraries cleaned up (and beefed up) somewhat. That would seem like the kind of thing they could really sell. What they really should do is to to scheme up some way to allow people with extensively rebound keypads to use the available Mlisp packages without having to rehack them for their own keymaps. (I'd try some approach using global variables for the various "fundamental operations" like Forward-Character, Next-Line, and so forth.) Just for fun, here's a little survey about what you think about the Unipress license costs. Let's pretend that they've got a version with as many improvements as have been made by James in the last year or so; and that they've also got a nice manual and tutorial. 1. Would you pay $1000 for a binary license? 2. Would you pay $7000 for a source license? 3. What would you pay for a binary license? 4. What would you pay for a source license? Assume that the "you" refers to whoever pays the bills where you are. Mail your responses to me and I'll summarize and report back when it looks like everybody's had a chance to respond. Bill Mitchell The U of Arizona p.s. Let me also say that I don't fault James in the least for making this move; my hat's off to him for doing the fine job that he's done with Emacs. [Insert applause here.]