rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) (02/13/90)
We have seen a lot of postings on netnews, and we have received a lot of calls at APDA, requesting that Phil and Dave's Excellent CD be made available through APDA. Hopefully the following will answer any questions you have about this: Phil and Dave's Excellent CD is restricted to Apple Partners and Associates due to the very preliminary nature of some of the materials contained on the CD-ROM. We want to be assured that those who receive these pre-pre-release code samples and tools have access to Apple Developer Technical Support. Please be assured that all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general distribution do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested. Many items on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are already sold through APDA, including Macintosh and Apple II sample code, system software, and the technical notes HyperCard stack. Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be available through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them. We appreciate your interest in these products. Our goal at APDA is still to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution. When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA. Rick Fleischman Developer Channels/APDA Apple Computer, Inc. e-mail: rickf@apple.com AppleLink: FLEISCHMAN@applelink.apple.com
gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (02/13/90)
In article <6635@internal.Apple.COM>, rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) writes... Rick says (my paraphrase): [ Some P & D stuff is too "pre-pre-prerelease" for general distrib. People] [who get it should have access to DTS] > >We appreciate your interest in these products. Our goal at APDA is still >to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution. >When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such >distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA. Sounds fairly reasonable, but if the time delay is >=, say, 4-6 months, it really would be better for us if we got the buggy versions than to get the good versions half a year late. By that time, the Partners/Associates will already be on to the newest P & D disk, again 6 months ahead of "the rest of us". If it takes only, say, 2 months delay, that's not too bad, though. Robert ============================================================================ = gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to = = * all my opinions are * compute" = = * mine * -Kraftwerk = ============================================================================
malczews@nunki.usc.edu (Frank Malczewski) (02/13/90)
> Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD ... will be available > through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them. > ... > When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such > distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA. > > Rick Fleischman Am I interpreting this correctly to mean that Apple's policy will be to sell each of the items on P&D's E CD individually via APDA for the non-developers and non-associates among us, and to make the CD available only to developers and associates? Or does this mean that P&D's E CD will be made available via APDA in due time? -- Frank Malczewski (malczews@nunki.usc.edu) (fdm@wlv.imsd.contel.com)
bjb@pyramid.com (Bruce Beare) (02/14/90)
In article <6635@internal.Apple.COM> rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) writes: > From: rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) > Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer > Subject: Re: Phil & Dave, where are you? All is forgiven: come home! > Summary: Info about availability through APDA > Message-ID: <6635@internal.Apple.COM> > Date: 12 Feb 90 20:36:55 GMT > References: <7497@tank.uchicago.edu> <7202@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <38436@apple.Apple.COM> <46056@wlbr.IMSD.CONTEL.COM> <38493@apple.Apple.COM> <10159@hoptoad.uucp> <38555@apple.Apple.COM> > Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA > Lines: 28 > Xref: pyramid comp.sys.apple:23177 comp.sys.mac:52414 comp.sys.mac.programmer:12937 > > We have seen a lot of postings on netnews, and we have received a lot of > calls at APDA, requesting that Phil and Dave's Excellent CD be made > available through APDA. Hopefully the following will answer any questions > you have about this: > > Phil and Dave's Excellent CD is restricted to Apple Partners and Associates > due to the very preliminary nature of some of the materials contained on the > CD-ROM. We want to be assured that those who receive these pre-pre-release > code samples and tools have access to Apple Developer Technical Support. > Please be assured that all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's > Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general distribution > do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested. Many items on Phil > and Dave's Excellent CD are already sold through APDA, including Macintosh > and Apple II sample code, system software, and the technical notes HyperCard > stack. Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including > SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be available > through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them. > > We appreciate your interest in these products. Our goal at APDA is still > to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution. > When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such > distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA. > > Rick Fleischman > Developer Channels/APDA > Apple Computer, Inc. > e-mail: rickf@apple.com > AppleLink: FLEISCHMAN@applelink.apple.com This sounds like corporate bull to me. Not everyone who develops Mac code can afford to be a partner/associate -- or will even be accepted into the program. The Excellent CD DOES NOT NEED TO BE PRODUCTIZED for the APDA audience. People who would order it: + have a CD player + intend to develop code + understand about developer tools + are not your normal office automation user By 'productizing' the pieces, APDA will + raise the price! Each piece will probably cost at least $20. The ENTIRE CD could be sold for that same $20. I'd bet that if every individual piece of the CD was sold on separate floppies, it would cost upwards of $1000 to get them all! + delay the distribution -- by months! + not distribute many of the goodies! A bunch of stuff in there will never be distributed by APDA -- they will decide that either there is a commertial product that does the job, or that the tool is not important enough! This corporate PR slop about 'pre-pre-release' and 'very preliminary' sounds a lot like APPLE trying to protect me from myself. Come on! The community of people who want the CD don't need to be protected in this way! Bruce Beare bjb@pyramid.com [ Coverall disclaimer: My opinions are not even my own. ]
dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (02/14/90)
In article <6635@internal.Apple.COM> rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) writes: > Phil and Dave's Excellent CD is restricted to Apple Partners and Associates > due to the very preliminary nature of some of the materials contained on the > CD-ROM. We want to be assured that those who receive these pre-pre-release > code samples and tools have access to Apple Developer Technical Support. > Please be assured that all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's > Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general distribution > do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested. Many items on Phil > and Dave's Excellent CD are already sold through APDA, including Macintosh > and Apple II sample code, system software, and the technical notes HyperCard > stack. Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including > SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be available > through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them. > > We appreciate your interest in these products. Our goal at APDA is still > to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution. > When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such > distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA. I appreciate your clarification of Apple's position here, Rick. I do have several further questions which your posting does not answer, though, and I hope you can provide some additional answers and rationales for all of us slavering tool-junkies out here in NetLand: 1) You say that "some" of the materials are of a "very preliminary nature", and that you wish to be assured that everyone who gets their hands on these have access to DTS. Question: What fundamental difference is there between these utilities, and the "Class 3" software which APDA has been offering for sale for several years? To quote from the APDA manual: "developed... for prototyping interesting development environments or for quickly solving specific problems. Others were actually final products at one time but have not been revised or updated, nor are they expected to be upgraded... may not work perfectly with newer system software releases or computer models. Apple Computer does not recommend that you use Class 3 products for developing commercial software; they are intended for your personal enjoyment only." Suggestion: If APDA is already offering this sort of software, _explicitly_ with no support from APDA or DTS, then there would seem to be no fundamental barrier to offering Phil&Dave's CD through APDA, and advising its buyers that some portions are of "Class 3" quality. It's really no different from what you are already doing. 2) You say that "all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general distribution do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested." Observation: Sometimes this testing cycle seems to take an uncomfortably long time. For example, it took about six months for the draft documentation on 32-bit Color QuickDraw (released at the developer's conference) to become available through APDA (Fall '89 catalog). Comment: As an independent software developer, I would _much_ rather have quick access to draft documentation than be forced to wait many months for a polished version. 2) You write that "Many items on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are already sold through APDA, including Macintosh and Apple II sample code, system software, and the technical notes HyperCard stack." Indeed. However, none of these things are currently available on CD-ROM. Currently, it's necessary to buy these things individually... usually on disk, with hardcopies attached... or download them from an online service and store them on floppies. This is an expensive process... the going APDA price for a single disk-and-documentation package seems to run $20-$25. It's easy to be twenty-dollared-to- death this way. I would _really_ like to see an APDA-supplied CD-ROM which contains the bulk of this sort of stuff... SpInside Mac, the Tech Notes and Q&A stacks, the System software, and so forth. This sort of CD-ROM would be much easier to handle than a collection of 20, 30, or 40 floppies... and the materials cost alone would be less than the cost of the corresponding number of floppies. Bulk DSDD floppies of good heritage (Sony, for example) seem to be available for about $.50 in large quantities... and the incremental cost-of-pressing of a CD-ROM is down below $2.50. The incremental cost of pressing CD-ROMs containing 100 megabytes of tools/software/documentation is FAR below the cost of distributing the same information on floppies or on paper. If APDA were to pass the reduced production cost on to its users (a heretical thought, perhaps?), it could significantly decrease the cost of achieving your stated goal of "the widest possible distribution." 3) You say "Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be available through APDA as soon as we can 'productize' them." See [1] and [2] above... for how long must we wait? and will we be able to get these products as part of a reasonably-priced CD-ROM? As you can probably infer, I'm not really happy with the current state of affairs. Your posting is the first definitive public statement I've seen from anyone at APDA about this issue in the eight months or so I've been trying to buy this CD-ROM through APDA. I thank you for posting, and making your corporate position clear... but I disagree with APDA's position. Apple (DTS, in particular) has made statements endorsing the CD-ROM as a software distribution medium. I'd really like to see some consistent actions from APDA. I would *love* like to see APDA sell Phil&Dave's Excellent CD; I'd be satisfied to see APDA sell an "APDA's Very Own Tested and Sanitized CD-ROM of Useful System Software, Documentation, and Tools." As long the cost is reasonable (i.e. related directly to the cost of producing the CD-ROM... NOT based on the sum of the costs of the diskette distributions!) these two approaches would both be of real benefit to Mac software authors. I feel very strongly that APDA should do one or the other. Phil Ostron assured me that APDA listens to the voices of its customers, on the Net and otherwise. I'm not from Missouri, but I'll say it anyway: "Show me!" Respectfully yours... -- Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 493-8805 UUCP: ...!{ames,apple,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303