Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wotan!moxie!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: Unlimited software warranties Message-ID: Date: 13 Mar 91 19:18:55 GMT References: <1991Mar12.015256.16098@ico.isc.com> <8024@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <1991Mar13.021244.2538@ico.isc.com> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 33 In article <1991Mar13.021244.2538@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: > But the overwhelming demand is NOT for > reliable, efficient software! The demand is for features! How do you determine that? Who out there is *shipping* reliable and efficient software? Who ever *has*? As soon as a UNIX version becomes reasonably stable and systems big enough to run it have become affordable, it's mutated out of that state. Every few years, when hardware to run old UNIX has reached a low enough price most people can afford it *the software is off the market*. It's happening again: now that you can get a 386SX with 8MB on the motherboard, V.3.2 is disappearing. Sure, you'd have to sell it for less to fit the market, but where's the profit on systems you don't sell? > I've ranted enough...OK, if you think I'm full of it, I'd be glad to be > shown wrong. Show me where and how quality is succeeding in the software > marketplace. Show me where it's being sold. How do I vote with my pocketbook if there are no names on the ballot? Here's a challenge for ISC: how about freezing the current version of your V.3.2 offering. Call it UNIX Classic, and sell it for a price aimed at the folks with $875 386SX clones. Don't include X, or MS-DOS emulation, or any of that stuff. Don't even support X: let people run Roell's server... just provide the hooks. AND keep selling it. Polish it if need be to reduce support costs, but don't go to V.4 or V.5 or ... if Apple can sell a "Mac Classic" and make a killing, you can do the same. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"