Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!quiche!peterd From: peterd@cs.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: X11 for the NeXTstation Summary: More blather from me... Message-ID: <1991Jan14.001459.13161@cs.mcgill.ca> Date: 14 Jan 91 00:14:59 GMT References: <17136@csli.Stanford.EDU> <3573@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1117@toaster.SFSU.EDU> Sender: news@cs.mcgill.ca (Netnews Administrator) Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Lines: 111 In article <1117@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: >In article <3573@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> dan@cortex.neuro.bcm.tmc.edu > (Dan Johnston) writes: >>Here's another similar story. The lack of X has cost NeXT many sales >>recently at my institution. They were very interested in NeXT but >>when they found out there was no X, they bought suns. > >Big F---ing Deal. As far as I'm concerned, stuff like [* list of things deleted *] >are all "foreign compatibility" products. None of these are >native to the NeXT. I don't want to pay for their development or >their support in bundled systems. . . . > >I also have a very low opinion of people who resort to emotional >blackmail. Well, I assume you are referring to me and my posting chastizing NeXT. You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't see it the same way. I had spoken to Judy Roy (East Coast Sales Director) who told me to write a letter to Ron Weissman, and that was my intention when the X debate resurfaced (again!). As I saw a number of people posting, I felt I had to share my experiences on the subject, so I went public instead. In addition, as I tried to make clear and perhaps failed, I now believe the issue is really not whether NeXT will ever support X in some form. I now believe that if nothing else, we will have it from Pencomm soon. No, I wrote to share with the net my experience getting programming support from NeXT for a large project. It doesn't really matter to me that the project was X, or that Mike Parker might have offended some dedicated NeXT employee by criticizing NeXTStep, or even that we hadn't yet sent someone to the NeXT Developers' Camp (we're scheduled to have a camp here at McGill, but couldn't do it until our machines arrived and had been installed). To me, the issue now is that NeXT has been less than helpful to a good client in a tight spot and I thought that was worth sharing with others in my line of work. I do hope it makes NeXT change their ways, but if not at least others will know what happened. A _lot_ of people keep writing asking us for mouse-X, or an update on mouse-X progress, etc. If you don't want it or need it, great, then you aren't in the tight spot the rest of us are in. Still, if you plan to do software development, you'd better find out how the others are getting their support. I haven't cracked the secret password yet. Having said that, I want to make clear I'm not jumping up and down mad. I understand NeXT is a young company and still on the learning curve. They can't do everything themselves. We might have tried harder, might have insisted on speaking to different people, etc. I wasn't the programmer doing the calling, so there was certainly an element of "telephone tag" confusion. Besides, I don't expect them to jump through hoops just for me and I don't think anyone can claim I've been sitting up here in the snow flaming NeXT over the past six months. Still, we are having problems, and I thought other netters were entitled to know the details. Look, I still like the company and their products and I'm still glad I have one on my desk. Ours are now in service and I expect they will give a good account of themselves this semester. But NeXT made a promise, I'm having problems and although I don't know what they're saying or doing in California or Boston, nobody is calling me to help sort things out. I thought you people would want to know. I know I would. >NeXT has better things to worry about... like developing a >C2-certifiable release. That's going to count for a lot more, >since the really big customers won't even look at NeXT without >that, and it's not something a third party can easily address. Sorry, but I don't think "they" will look at it without X, as well. It's now what the marketers call a "checklist item". That matters to you, because every sale makes the company better able to support _all_ customers. >As it is, we see NeXTs having a lot fewer deficiencies than Suns. >As soon as the color NeXTs start shipping in volume, we'll have >a hard time justifying more SPARCstations--they're just too damn >expensive to bring up to a similar level of functionality. I suppose it depends upon what you're doing and what you are doing it with. In my line of work (university teaching and research) interoperability is a must, on all fronts. Our researchers are still ordering Suns, IBMs, etc. That's the world I live in. If NeXT doesn't want to play in this sandbox, fine. But if they do, they have to bring the right pail and shovel. - peterd -------------------------------------------------------------------------- +-------+ Peter Deutsch McGill University | u # u | peterd@cs.mcgill.ca School of Computer Science |/\/\/\/| | a a | "As God is my witness, Andy. I thought that turkeys \ a / could fly!" \___/ - Mr. Carlson, in WKRP in Cincinatti... --------------------------------------------------------------------------