Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU!jimf%saber
From: jimf%saber@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Xview vs. Motif speculation
Message-ID: <9004101848.AA27043@armory>
Date: 10 Apr 90 18:48:25 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 32

|Any suggestions how the software companies should pay for 
|the time and money invested/spent in building and *supporting* 
|the software that you suggest be available via ftp from every coner of
|the universe? [...]

|Why ask for Motif only?  Why not ask for free source for every product
|built by these companies?

I'm not for everything being freely available, but programmer's
toolkits that support an interface that you're trying to make a
standard so that people will buy your product over someone else's (ie
Motif for OSF/1 vs Open Look for Sun/AT&T) are probably a good idea to
write off (ie give away for free).

Forcing companies (especially the small ones that have fast turnaround
times) to pay for a toolkit so they can build applications for your
system is (bluntly) a stupid idea.  Let's face it, OSF/1 is where the
money is supposed to come from, not OSF/Motif.  What OSF should be
doing is saying "Hey, here's our toolkit, build applications for us so
that when OSF/1 comes out we'll have a thousand applications already
built" instead of forcing companies to gamble cash on whether or not
OSF/1 is going to come out on time or even at all.

This is why there are often developer's discounts on hardware.  The
hardware vendor realizes that no consumer in their right mind is going
to buy a system with no software.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

jim frost
saber software
jimf@saber.com