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From: montnaro@spyder.crd.ge.com (Skip Montanaro)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: NeWS down-played in OW 2.0
Message-ID: <MONTNARO.90Aug27211348@spyder.crd.ge.com>
Date: 28 Aug 90 01:13:48 GMT
References: <1990Aug21.154152.27532@odin.corp.sgi.com> <14471@diamond.BBN.COM>
	<4806@shemesh.GBA.NYU.EDU> <1990Aug24.181515.18866@dircon.uucp>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Reply-To: montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com (Skip Montanaro)
Organization: GE Corporate Research & Development, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 33
In-reply-to: uad1077@dircon.uucp's message of 24 Aug 90 18:15:15 GMT

In article <1990Aug24.181515.18866@dircon.uucp> uad1077@dircon.uucp writes:

   There seems to be a significant sub-culture of people who liked
   NeWS so much they tried poting it (yeah, even way back in 1987).
   The ports worked real well, but unfortunately many of these people
   got so fed up of Sun's attitude to these people who were trying to
   help promote this product that they went away and did more rewarding
   things instead.  To the best of my knowledge, Mark Callow is the only
   one of these people who has lasted the course.

Scott McNealy spoke recently at a local Sun symposium we hold each year. He
said (paraphrased):

	"The biggest mistake I ever made was rolling over on the X versus
	NeWS issue."

He made two other statements that reflect on the X vs. NeWS and Open Look
vs. Motif things:

	"We didn't set out to design a new graphical user interface. Bill
	Joy and I first talked with Bill Gates. He wanted too high a royalty
	for Windows. [Sun wanted to pay $5 per seat, Gates wanted $80 and
	wouldn't go below $50.] Then we went to John Scully. He was too busy
	promoting a new book. Then we went to Steve Jobs. He said, 'I'll get
	back to you.' and never did, so AT&T, Xerox, and Sun teamed up to do
	Open Look."

	"The royalties for Motif 2.0 will be double that for 1.0 [$80 vs.
	$40]. To get retail dollars, multiply that by 5. It's the only
	revenue OSF has, so they're milking it."

--
Skip (montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com)