Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!baroque.Stanford.EDU!jim From: jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: Showcase - SGI please respond! Message-ID: Date: 25 Mar 91 00:57:04 GMT References: <1991Mar21.201915.23361@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1991Mar22.174054.25110@odin.corp.sgi.com> <91083.141920SML108@psuvm.psu.edu> Sender: news@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 38 In-Reply-To: SML108@psuvm.psu.edu's message of 24 Mar 91 19:19:20 GMT Let's see, if we assume an installed base of 30,000 (a moderately wild guess) of which say 50% (a completely wild guess) are 4Ds with their own update media contracts. At a distribution cost of about $100 per tape, that's a $1.5M expense to give users something many probably don't care about and which all will get with IRIX 4.0 anyway. Even if that overstates the number by a factor of 2 or more, it's still a pretty piece of change. Charging $100 would be reasonable were it not for the inconvenience that the procurement paperwork presents at many institutions. An intermediate solution would be to make the tape available free, on request, as has been done on occasion for other software products. Since in reasonable quantities, CD-ROMS are substantially cheaper than 1/4" tapes, making free "specials" available should become easier in the future. I too am bothered by the software unbundling that is sweeping (?) the industry. I'm glad that SGI will include showcase in the IRIX 4.0 distribution. I wish they would do the same for things such as DWB (Documenter's Workbench). There are very many IRISes out there that have commercial and free third-party software installed, but man pages are not available because there's no nroff, and the sysadmins haven't installed something free like awf. Custom software packages with obscure command line options are confusing enough to new users even with man pages. Unix sans nroff is a big step backwards in user friendliness. It's just another missing feature that makes many users flinch when they have to use another flavor of Unix, such as IRIX. In my experience, such "incompatibilities" are the second most common reason (behind third-party software availability) that people recommend other platforms. Unbundling is also more damaging for a company like SGI than for its larger competitors because many large sites, such as Stanford, have group licenses for unbundled products from biggies like Sun, but not from SGI. Jim Helman Department of Applied Physics Durand 012 Stanford University FAX: (415) 725-3377 (jim@KAOS.stanford.edu) Work: (415) 723-9127