ianh@bhpmrl.oz.au (Ian Hoyle) (06/26/90)
rand@merrimack.edu writes: >In article <268138A0.6F2B@intercon.com>, amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: >> In article <TIME.90Jun21140120@crane.aa.ox.com>, time@crane.aa.ox.com (Tim >> Endres) writes: >> >> You'd better form a company and start hiring people and buying equipment. >> It's a hard, tough job. A good PD NFS client would be really cool, but it's >> no substitute for a commercial-quality product with a good support >> organization behind it. Free is great, but you get what you pay for. >> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> -- >> Amanda Walker, InterCon Systems Corporation >Gee, Amanda, you wouldn't have anything to gain from a statement like >this, would you? Last I knew (mostly from you spouting it's virtues >all over the net) your company sells a 'commercial' version of the PD >NCSA Telnet. >I'm not one to flame but how about a disclaimer for those who can't >see between the lines. Well Rand, since a) I use squillions of PD applications/inits etc (and yes, some of which I *have* sent off my registration for :-) b) I have used (and still do occasionally) comms packages such as NCSA Telnet c) I am also a user of Intercon Corp's (or as you put, Amanda's) 'commercial' version of NCSA Telnet (which I happen to think doesn't give any indication as to the extensions Intercon has made to the package) I was a trifle pissed off by this blunt flame of Amanda Walker. I simply read it as an expression of someones frustration in trying to support a new product on the market, whereby they have taken a **great** PD utility/concept and made it into a wonderful/marketable product, albeit one with some teething problems. Save the flaming for alt.flame. It's great to see some small companies producing good, useful software. Good on ya Amanda & Gaige. ian -- Ian Hoyle /\/\ Image Processing & Data Analysis Group / / /\ BHP Melbourne Research Laboratories / / / \ 245 Wellington Rd, Mulgrave, 3170 / / / /\ \ AUSTRALIA \ \/ / / / \ / / / Phone : +61-3-560-7066 \/\/\/ FAX : +61-3-561-6709 E-mail : ianh@bhpmrl.oz.au
cy@dbase.A-T.COM (Cy Shuster) (06/27/90)
In article <3700@crystal9.UUCP> derosa@motcid.UUCP (John DeRosa) writes: > >You are all forgetting about TOPS by Sun Microsystems. It has ^^^^ >been able to mount volumes between Sun, Macintosh and MS-DOS >machines for years. Enjoy. ...now renamed to the "Sitka" Company, in resolution of a suit with a similarly named company (sheesh! Seems like just yesterday it was Centram! Who can keep up??) --Cy-- cy@dbase.a-t.com Hi, Don!
amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (06/27/90)
In article <8873@goofy.Apple.COM>, escher@Apple.COM (Michael Crawford) writes: > Guarantees????!!! Accountability????? Well, yeah :-). Preemptive Disclaimer: I'm not InterCon's Legal Eagle, but I do a lot of InterCon's technical support, even when it interferes with other stuff that I'm doing. The following discussion is informal: We offer a money-back guarantee on our software, although we generally request the chance to fix problems before a customer returns the software. We also include a year's worth of unlimited technical support by phone, fax, and email with everything we sell. Granted, most software houses aren't so liberal with support, and disclaim any responsibility for their product. Even so, "shrink-wrap licenses" are at this point not considered to be enforceable by most legal experts, and they very act of selling the software entails making an implicit minimal performance guarantee. It also supplies incentive to a company that is not present to the author of PD software: when PD software breaks, the worst that usually happens is that it gets dragged into the trashcan. If a commercial product breaks, the vendor gets flamed on the net and in Mac magazines, and may even get sued for false advertising or worse. Microsoft seems to be teflon-coated :-), but in general, if your software doesn't work, your company dies in the marketplace. -- Amanda Walker, InterCon Systems Corporation -- The customer isn't always right, but they do get an unnatural amount of slack.
rand@merrimack.edu (06/27/90)
In article <26867CE4.183F@intercon.com>, amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > In article <19724.2681dd74@merrimack.edu>, rand@merrimack.edu writes: >> Gee, Amanda, you wouldn't have anything to gain from a statement like >> this, would you? > > My major point was that "supporting" even PD software takes a lot of > resources. I stand by my statement that "free is great but you get what MY major point was that I don't think you give a proper disclaimer on some of your posts. While you may be following posting guidelines for vendors providing information and not sales pitches I still think you should fully disclose your interest. Disclaimers to the effect of "Disclaimer: I work for the company who's product I'm discussing so take this with a grain of salt." are nice. There are a lot of naive people out there who don't/can't always notice the connection. I know you have Intercon in your .sig but from some of your posts (and this goes for others too, like I saw one from Apple today) it is not perfectly clear. That's my beef. _I_ like to know where people are coming from. As for: > - I resent being accused of "spouting all over the net." When people ask Well I guess a lot of people are asking questions. I just did a quick grep of my news database and found oodles of posts. And I expire posts pretty quickly. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I see your posts all over the place and you're usually discussing your product. For the casual observer you look suspiciously overzealous. Send me a copy of TCP/Connect and I'll shut up. :) Rand P. Hall UUCP: {uunet,wang,ulowell}!samsung!hubdub!rand Merrimack College CSNET: rand@merrimack.edu N. Andover, MA "Carrying a spare is negative thinking" -- Norris Weldon
john@chsun1.uchicago.edu (John Van Voorhis) (06/28/90)
I overheard at an Apple show here in Chicago, that Apple has legal problems with their NFS. It seems the group that wrote the initial port that they are extending never bothered to ask Sun about a license. So Apple is trying to talk to Sun now, so they can ship MacNFS real soon now. The person who gave out this info also said that it is all ready to ship, once they solve the license problem. John Van Voorhis | |\ All I ask is a tall ship, Chapin Hall Center, U. of Chicago | /| \ and a star to steer her by. Bitnet: john@chsun1.uchicago.bitnet | / |--\ - John Masefield Internet: john@chsun1.uchicago.edu | `------'
zben@umd5.umd.edu (Ben Cranston) (06/28/90)
In article <26882E2B.2AC7@intercon.com> amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes: > Microsoft seems to be teflon-coated :-), but in general, if your software > doesn't work, your company dies in the marketplace. Would that this were true, but IMHO that this is NOT true is a stinging inci indictment of everything that is wrong with amerikkan industry. When a company gets to a certain threshhold size, no wrongheaded or even criminal act is sufficient to make Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" descend in wrath. * The Coca-Cola companies egregious changing of the formula, then changing they changed it back when they in fact didn't, with the flimsy fig-leaf of "well, individual bottlers were *always* allowed to use Corn Syrup instead of sugar" (in spite of the fact that all domestic bottlers used the opportunity to change over). * Allied Chemical's creation of a three-man subsidiary in order to manufacture hazardous insecticides for overseas use, and pollution of an entire watershed by egregiously poor waste management practices, and subsequent legal claim to immunity from liability. Big Business (and Big Government) protects its own, and it's the best real example of a diseconomy-of-scale I've seen. -- Ben Cranston <zben@umd2.umd.edu> Warm and Fuzzy Networking Group, Egregious State University My cat is named "Perpetually Hungry Autonomous Carbon Unit"; I call him "Sam".
amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (06/28/90)
In article <19780.2688cc11@merrimack.edu>, rand@merrimack.edu writes: > "Disclaimer: I work for the company who's product I'm discussing so > take this with a grain of salt." are nice. There are a lot of naive > people out there who don't/can't always notice the connection. Whoa, let's do a reality check here. My company's products were not under discussion until you accused me of misrepresenting myself. We were discussing MacNFS, and I was challenging what I perceived to be a claim that supporting a PD product was equivalent to supporting a commercial product. Neither my employer nor our product even entered into it. The closest I can come to a disclaimer that would have been relevant to the discussion at hand would have been "Disclaimer: I produce commercial software for a living", but I would have thought that was pretty obvious, from the company name in my signature, if nothing else. > Well I guess a lot of people are asking questions. I just did a quick grep > of my news database and found oodles of posts. And I expire posts pretty > quickly. If we discount the recent burst of questions about the product brought on by yur posting, most of what I post to the net falls into the following categories (roughly in descending order by volume): soc.motss mainly friendly gossip, certainly not very work-related comp.lang.postscript Answering PostScript questions, occasionally arguing with people about Adobe's policies comp.sys.mac.* Answering prgramming questions and specific queries about Macintosh TCP/IP. Most such replies are in email, not posted. Occasional arguments with "ivory tower" types, or people who think the Apple is the Source Of All Evil :-)... > I guess what I'm trying to say is that I see your posts all over the place > and you're usually discussing your product. For the casual observer you look > suspiciously overzealous. There are two factors here: When people ask, I answer. Usually this is in email, but if the question seems of widespread interest and hasn't been answered recently, I'll post. I generally wait to see if someone else will answer before I do so, simply out of politeness. If I'm overzealous about anything, it's probably in my impatience with GNU-style arguments that "software should be free" and "Apple is evil and stupid." I'm a capitalist--what can I say :-)? I think you're overreacting. I also think that we should take this to email if you'd like to continue the conversation, so as not to further irritate other readers. -- Amanda Walker Engineer, Graphic Artist & Capitalist At Large InterCon Systems Corporation -- The customer isn't always right, but they do get an unnatural amount of slack.
escher@Apple.COM (Michael Crawford) (06/29/90)
In article <268A351B.3EEC@intercon.com> you write: > >If I'm overzealous about anything, it's probably in my impatience with >GNU-style arguments that "software should be free" and "Apple is evil and >stupid." I'm a capitalist--what can I say :-)? Let's confuse the matter even further! I am a capitalist. I am one of two partners in Oddball Enterprises, and we aim to be zillionaires. I think software should be free. Why? Because I think software is a beautiful and pure thing, that should not be held prisoner by capitalistic interests. How do these two statements make sense with each other? I think most software is not written for commercial sale, but for the custom use of the company, or person, who commissions its use. I feel it is appropriate to pay for software, when you need some created. I may be wrong here, but I have been in the business for a few years, and it looks to me like this is the case, based on what people have wanted to pay me to do. I also don't like reinventing the wheel, and appreciate the fact that GNU has created a number of high-quality freeware programming utilities, so people don't need to sell them anymore, and can get on to more creative things. There is no scarcity, in my opinion, of potential products. In fact, there are more programs I would like to write, and devices I would like to build, than I could possibly complete in my entire life. When I left home and went to college, I did not mean to be a businessman. I meant to spend my life in academia, where I was taught the value of the free sharing of information and ideas. It also turned out that I did not like academia very much, for other reasons, and really like the exciting pace of business, but I still hold the ethical values that made me originally choose academia. I suppose my opinion could be analogous to the fact that highways are free, but cars are not. Items of infrastructure, that would benefit all, should be produced and distributed freely, if they can be, the way software can be. Items meant for a particular use, or that cannot be produced inexpensively, like a car, should be paid for by the individual. I understand that highways are not really free, but are paid for by the gas tax -- but then free software is not free, either; it is paid for through donations of money and labor, but the payment benefits all, like our taxes are supposed to. You don't have to pay the gas tax to drive. Just make your own fuel. I am an avid supporter of the Free Software Foundation. I am also contracting for Apple, which upsets some of my close friends who are FSF members. I don't think Apple is evil and stupid. There are a number of things I disagree with, but I don't think it is appropriate to boycott Apple, or refuse to consult for them because of it. There are many things that Apple does that are far better for the world as a whole than I see coming from most other companies that the FSF is in favor of. I prefer to work here, and make use of GNU tools, and show people around here how free software benefits even people here at Apple (which makes some people view me as a wild-eyed radical, but my message does get through. Many people had never heard of anonymous FTP before I showed it to them). Note that the Free Software Foundation does not mean anything like "Inexpensive Software Foundation", but more like "Software Freedom Foundation". It is the software itself that is being set free. -- Michael D. Crawford Oddball Enterprises Consulting for Apple Computer Inc. 606 Modesto Avenue escher@apple.com Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Applelink: escher@apple.com@INTERNET# oddball!mike@ucscc.ucsc.edu The opinions expressed here are solely my own. alias make '/bin/make & rn'
amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) (06/29/90)
[before we start waxing philosphical here... It seems that many people are now under the impression that InterCon makes a Macintosh NFS product, and that I should be putting disclaimers in my postings about NFS. We don't, which is why I didn't.] In article <8921@goofy.Apple.COM>, escher@Apple.COM (Michael Crawford) writes: > I am a capitalist. > I think software should be free. Why? Because I think software is a > beautiful and pure thing, that should not be held prisoner by capitalistic > interests. Hmm. I see what you are trying to say, but I still disagree; in particular, I do not think that capitalism "holds software prisoner," any more than art auctions at Sotheby's "hold art prisoner." Software is a strange thing. Even so, it still has value to people, and as such it is an economic good. People will want to buy it, and so other people will want to sell it. > I suppose my opinion could be analogous to the fact that highways are > free, but cars are not. Items of infrastructure, that would benefit > all, should be produced and distributed freely, if they can be, > the way software can be. Items meant for a particular use, or that > cannot be produced inexpensively, like a car, should be paid for > by the individual. My only problem with this is that most software is not inexpensive to produce. To take GNU as an example: after you strip away Stallman's political rhetoric, the FSF is simply a brilliant cooperative venture involving much of the academic and commercial computer community. FSF software is subsidized by industry and academia. This subsidy takes the form of time, money, and equipment. The things that make FSF different from other attempts at joint ventures are: - Stallman's vision, as unrealistic as it may be. - The fact that nobody has a controlling interest, and the organization's goals are very broad. - It's principle goal (a GNU OS) is explicitly long-term, unlike, say, OSF. They've done wonderful stuff, but I do not think that the FSF/GNU model is viable for anything except general-purpose software. I find it hard to imagine, say, "GNU Medical Billing," "GNU Inventory Control," or "GNU Electronic Funds Transfer Management" software... > You don't have to pay the gas tax to drive. Just make your own fuel. I don't like this analogy. All people can't use the same software, the way all cars can use (pretty nearly) the same gasoline. Most software is not a commodity. The more general-purpose it is, the closer it gets, which is why the GNU project has been most successful with broadly based software development tools. > I am an avid supporter of the Free Software Foundation. I am too. I just don't think that they've discovered The One True Way... > Note that the Free Software Foundation does not mean anything like > "Inexpensive Software Foundation", but more like "Software Freedom > Foundation". It is the software itself that is being set free. This is getting a little odd :-). Software is just information. What it does is set *people* free... -- Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation -- "Fear not those who argue, but those who dodge." -- Marie Ebner-Eschenbach
baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten) (07/03/90)
In article <26882E2B.2AC7@intercon.com>, amanda@mermaid (Amanda Walker) writes: >We offer a money-back guarantee on our software, although we generally >request the chance to fix problems before a customer returns the software. >We also include a year's worth of unlimited technical support by phone, >fax, and email with everything we sell. > >Granted, most software houses aren't so liberal with support, and disclaim >any responsibility for their product. Well, this is getting pretty far afield, but I just read in MacWEEK that even big bad Microsoft is providing unlimited tech support, 12 hours a day, for Windows 3.0 (I think even toll-free, though I'm not sure). And given their track record for ".0" releases, I have a feeling that 12 hours a day may not be enough... :-) -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." baumgart@esquire.dpw.com | cmcl2!esquire!baumgart | - David Letterman