Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!ucsd!hub!eiffel!nosmo
From: nosmo@eiffel.UUCP (Vince Kraemer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ pricing for AT&T Release 2.0, and 386 binaries
Summary: Killing Myths about pricing policies
Message-ID: <185@eiffel.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jul 89 15:17:53 GMT
References: <1379@hcr.UUCP> <6590196@hplsla.HP.COM>
Organization: Interactive Software Engineering, Santa Barbara CA
Lines: 45

In article <6590196@hplsla.HP.COM>, jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock) writes:
> a big setback for the C++ community.  I guess I would have expected this
> of an ObjC, or an Eiffel.


Ahem!

Although I cannot speak for Stepstone, I feel compelled to respond to this,
educating those who share this misconception about Interactive Software
Engineering and our pricing policies.

Currently, we are releasing a new version of Eiffel and LOWERING the
prices. Just to give an idea, the Xenix version is $495 (basic system),
$795 (developer's toolkit, with the library and all the tools).

Net whisper > BUT YOU GUYS ONLY SELL A BINARY VERSION OF THE COMPILER.
            > WE WANT SOURCE.

As Greg Minshall points out, in message 773@kinetics.UUCP, there are
only two reasons that one may want a source license:

1. Port to a new platform.
    We, like others, are in this business to make a profit.  This is not
    to say that we are not receptive to others doing ports to
    systems on which they have more experience.

2. To fix bugs in the compiler or LIBRARY.

Fixing bugs in the library has been pointed out by two other people as
being one of the major reasons why they have had to choose a source
licence for C++, over depending on a third party BINARY version of the
C++ translator and libC (References: Jim Hughes, message
1477@ns.network.com and Joseph Sacco, message 52@eileen.samsung.com).

Our library comes as SOURCE with the Eiffel system.  There are no
complicated legal strings attached to this library of classes.  There
are also no run-time royalties of any kind, even if you include a copy
of our run-time system (garbage collector and all) in C form.

With the current change in C++ pricing, I hope that some you will take a
second look at Eiffel.

I've never had to hate hack-cpp-parameterizations,
Vince Kraemer
(nosmo@eiffel.com or ..!uunet!eiffel!nosmo)