Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!spooky!witr
From: witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Mach from mt Xinu
Message-ID: <1991Mar6.183453.944@rwwa.COM>
Date: 6 Mar 91 18:34:53 GMT
References: <1991Feb28.201150.18587@mtxinu.COM> <6641@saffron1.UUCP> <1991Mar5.232240.19264@mtxinu.COM>
Organization: R.W. Withrow Associates
Lines: 43

Dear Mr. Hale:

I don't have much sympathy for the tone of the flames directed at
MtXinu recently.

However, In article <1991Mar5.232240.19264@mtxinu.COM> you write:
>We have been providing supported Berkeley UNIX on a variety
>of hardware platforms for the past seven years.
...
> If we could not charge the prices we do, we would not be able to
> afford to provide our services...

From what I understand of your announcement, the services you are
providing for the purchase fee are:

  1) Paying royalties to ATT,
  2) Repackaging working CMU software,
  3) Duplicating it onto floppies and tapes,
  4) and (although not stated, but I would assume) duplicating the
documentation. 

The services your *are not* providing for this fee are,
  1) Helping to solve customer's problems,
  2) Providing bug fixes. 
Or, in other words, you are *not* providing support for the purchase
price.  You *sell* these services for additional amounts.

Thus, unless you have a different definition for support than I do,
you do not ``provide supported Berkeley UNIX'' or supported Mach;
rather you sell *unsupported* Berkeley Unix and Mach, and charge
additional for the support.  I don't object to your doing this, but I
wish you would be more forthright in your descriptions.

I personally find $1,000 a little steep for a duplicating service.
There is an old saw in the software business that, when applied to
your company, goes like this:

``The software sells for $1,000.  Of course, if you want it to work
that will be an additional $500 per year.''
-- 
---
 Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA 01907 USA
 Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430, Net: witr@rwwa.COM