Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!VAX1.CC.UAKRON.EDU!mcs.kent.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!po.CWRU.Edu!cjs
From: cjs@po.CWRU.Edu (Christopher J. Seline)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Commercial vs. Local-ware TCP/IP
Message-ID: <1991Mar1.215852.4134@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
Date: 1 Mar 91 21:58:52 GMT
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Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
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Subject_was: Price of FTP Inc.'s Stuff
Reply-To: cjs@po.CWRU.Edu (Christopher J. Seline)
References: <9103010424.aa16909@louie.udel.edu> <usc!cs.utexas.edu!helios!ewillis@UCSD.EDU>
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)

                     In a previous article: 
             jbvb@FTP.COM ("James B. Van Bokkelen")
                             WRITES:

     Why pay when there is freeware?  Well, a support group
     is one thing, but another is that a commercial company
     can hire people to do hard things (put the protocol stack
     in a TSR, write an RFC 1001/1002 NETBIOS or a DOS I/O
     redirector) that appear to beyond the scope of most of
     the plans people have for the non-commercial packages. 
     Maintaining freeware is usually a labor of love, and many
     of the laborers have burned out or gotten their degrees
     and moved on.  I respect and appreciate their
     contribution, because it all advances networking in
     general, but I do see them as addressing a different
     specific need than we do.

As a victim of a non-commercial package here at CWRU let me tell
you I'd love it if we had FTP Inc's TCP/IP.

Our (my) biggest problem is user programs -- users can't write
program; so, unless you can convince the powers that be to provide
a program you are out-of-luck.  Why?  
     (1) The (local) TCP/IP calls are undocumented; and 
     (2) our software is derived from Stanford's proprietary code
     and therefore students and faculty do not have access to the
     code; therefore they can't read the code to figure-out how to
     make the calls themselves.

Of course, if I desperately needed TCP/IP I could use someone
else's package (or purchase FTP's) BUT THAT WOULD MEAN THE PROGRAM
COULD ONLY BE DISTRIBUTED TO USERS CAPABLE OF LOADING THIS 'OTHER
TCP/IP TSR.'  WHICH (in an environment like CWRU) IS DARN FEW.