Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!samsung!uunet!indetech!fiver!palowoda From: palowoda@fiver.UUCP (Bob Palowoda) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: ISC man page Message-ID: <1030@fiver.UUCP> Date: 25 Mar 90 07:28:01 GMT References: Organization: Fiver Communications Fremont, Ca Lines: 29 From article , by zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff): >>>Does any one know why there are no man pages for all ISC 2.0.2 packages >> >>How much disk space do you say you have? > > Certainly enough to hold man pages. ~4-6MB should do it. I believe it's > a licensing issue with AT&T (ie, more like "how much are you willing to > pay for them"). This is going to be interesting. They price it too high people will buy the books. Nothing worse than being in competition with yourself. Another interesting point is that AT&T has the nroff man pages already to produce the books. I would guess that they gave Prentice Hall the same man pages to typeset the books. How much more are the pages worth on electronic media? Not much more then the books. Lets say their is about 4-6meg. About (eight 1.2meg floppies) x (5.00 disk inc. labor to make disks) comes out to 40.00. A set of manuals cost 300.00 or about 150 from other publishers. Seems like a tidy profit already. Selling them more than the manuals already would be like giveing the customer a new buthole. I can understand the cost of developing software. But I would really have a problem understanding why man pages would cost more then the books? Please don't come up with the arguement about the convience of being able to call up man pages. I hope AT&T is listening. They need all the help they can get when it comes to makeing UNIX more intuitive to learn. That is would be one way to increase the UNIX market share. I hope the lawyers don't try to figure the price. We will have 1 to 2 user versions of the man pages. ---Bob