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From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Old AmigaLibDisk material
Message-ID: <36266@cup.portal.com>
Date: 27 Nov 90 13:58:46 GMT
References: <9654@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <35991@cup.portal.com>
  <14089@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com> <18416a2a.ARN239b@chumly.ka.sub.org>
  <18436b7b.ARN04183@adspdk.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 71

hclausen@adspdk.UUCP (Henrik Clausen) in <18436b7b.ARN04183@adspdk.UUCP> writes
:

	No, this would hold back binaries that are very useful. Coming first
	to my mind is lharc, where the author keeps the source in order to
	avoid a confusion load of minor revisions. Lots of other examples of
	this reasonable policy can be found.

Huh?  I've the lharc running on several different UNIX boxes I use simply
because the source IS available.  And, in one test of the recent "overlarge"
pbmplus on abcfd20, I de-lzh'd the file, then tar'd and compress'd it: the
lharc'd file is some 965K and the compressed tar'd file is 802K.  So I don't
see what's so great about lharc that prompts you to single it out (above).

I don't know about you, but I refuse to run PD binary-only distribution
programs on my personal systems.  And the fact I've NEVER had a virus
infestation and that my Amigas stay up 6 months at a time before rebooting
(only because I power-down then to clean the fans, etc.) should prove the
wisdom of my ways.

Of course, I do get every Fish Disk and I do run some of the binary-only
programs on the office Amiga systems, but ... :-)

Continuing --

	The programmer/owner percentage of microcomputers has ever been
	falling from the day VisiCalc appeared, and will continue to do so.
	The AmigaLibDisks have a much wider audience than programmers and
	.tech people.

I can neither believe nor refute the first sentence above; I do agree with
the second sentence.

You stated "percentage."  Hmm, now we're getting into statistics.  With
statistics I can "prove" the average voltage coming out of your wall AC socket
is ZERO so it's therefore "safe" to stick your fingers in the socket.  Think
about it: the average of all the points along a sine-wave centered about zero
is zero.  That's why the "real" rating is VAC RMS where "RMS" = Root Mean
Squared meaning the square root of the voltages squared so everything is in
the positive domain (and, hence, 120 VAC RMS).  But I digress for some fun. :-)

The VALUE of the "Fish Disk Collection" is in the variety of material for
everyone, comprising demos, code examples, useful utilities, and even some
graphic pictures; you wouldn't believe how many Mac- and IBM-nuts literally
shit their pants when I show them the car, bike and plane pictures from Fish
Disk #195 ... they CANNOT display pictures like that on their systems and I
believe my showing them off has stimulated at least a few Amiga purchases,
along with the OTHER capabilties I demonstrate on the Amiga (multitasking
being the biggest hit ... doing multiple compiles, edits, file-transfers and
maybe a multi-tasking game at the same time).

I personally prefer more source-code contributions since I'm one of those from
the "old school" where we build upon the work of others and contribute in
turn.

Consider as just ONE example my "Ruler" program which appears on several
archive sites and BBS systems.  A "kid" (Chad Netzer) saw and liked what I did
and added some features ... but there were a few problems in his enhancements,
so we talked over the phone and I taught him some "tricks of the trade" which
he used in his enhancement; after a few more go-arounds he had a "value-added"
program that we were both proud of.  And I, recognizing his potential, hired
him for a Summer job two years ago, and again last Summer, and he's now
working for me 4 days a week (Tue, Thur, Sat, Sun) while attending UCSC ...
he's now a major contributor helping me on the UNIX port of my company's major
product.  Just one, of many, "WIN-WIN" situations that would NEVER have
happened if I was selfish and didn't distribute the source to my programs that
I release to the PD.

Any more questions?   :-)

Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]