leong+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (John Leong) (07/30/87)
Further to a recent posting concerning the CMU-TEK IP software for VMS, I have the following qualifications : [1] The software is not really free. In the past, when we were receiving requests at a rate of 5 or so a month, programmers will just bang out the tape and levy a charge of something like $25 just to cover postage. In view of the recent increase requests for the software, we are having administration and operation to handle the mechanic of request processing. We will be levying a charge of $100 per request to cover media, postage, handling, and. hopefully, keep out potential nusiance requests. [2] While the software has been substantially re-written and significantly improved by the staff of our CS department, I would like to fully acknowledge the contribution by Tektronix. Not only have they the foresight and committement to carry out the original development, they have also done the academic and research community a great big favour by letting CMU distribute the software at virtually no cost - even if it is not supported. I can name a few university developments that got complete tangled up by licensing by corporations that has only money in their brain. [3] Finally, the software is ** NOT SUPPORTED and has absolutely NO WARRANTIES **. Unsupported software may be fine for organisations that have significant local expertise or want to take advantage of the available source (in Bliss) to make local enhancements. It should not be used simply on account of its low cost. This can be dangerously deceptive since you can end up paying bundles more if the package starts causing all sorts of instablity with your system and you have no idea what it is doing [and no one to get help from!] . For quite a number of organisations, you may well be advised to get fully supported and warrantied software from commercial vendors instead. John Leong CMU