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From: jashley@loanshark.cs.indiana.edu (J. Michael Ashley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Freewhare hurts the NeXT (was Re: Desktop publishing)
Message-ID: <1991Mar31.084853.18232@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 31 Mar 91 13:48:20 GMT
References: <1446@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1991Mar30.063733.27117@news.cs.indiana.edu> <70367@brunix.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Lines: 78

In article <70367@brunix.UUCP> you write:
>In article <1991Mar30.063733.27117@news.cs.indiana.edu> jashley@loanshark.cs.indiana.edu (J. Michael Ashley) writes:
>>It's bad, because GNU cc is *not* the last word in C compilers.  I am
>>positive that several or even lots of people out there are capable of 
>>writing a C compiler that will smoke gcc, but they're never going to write
>>it, because they can't compete against a free product.  Why should the
>
>says who? If something is good enough, people will buy it.

Seriously, would you?  Several people have tried to sell C compilers for
Unix platforms in the past, and they were supposedly pretty good compilers.
Trouble is, they couldn't compete against freewhare.  This is a hypothesis;
see the end of the note.

>>sell their compiler in the first place?  Because they have to eat, that's 
>>why.  GNU gets grants from corporations and the government; not everybody 
>>is that lucky.
>
>Getting grants here is the same as being paid. If GNU stuff weren't
>any good, then there would be no interest. 

I'm not questioning the fact that GNU software is good.  My point is that
somebody can *always* do *better*.

>>NeXT will never have strong software as long as this deluge of free software
>>exists.  Has a situation similar to this existed in another economic market?
>
>This statement lacks any basis.

You're right.  I should have said "I conjuecture that NeXT..."

> The software that is around is pretty high quality

Well, I disagree with that, but "high quality" is a pretty subjective thing.

>Given
>the time NeXT is on the market there is quite a reasonable number of
>programs out there.

Really?  I still can't find a decent TeX previewer.  I hardly think Emacs
is a great text editor.  Other people must share the same sentiments I do,
and like me, they don't have time to remedy the situation.  We'd rather
leave it to the people who are really good at it.

>The only way the free software can hurt NeXT is that people like you
>do not like quality but quantity.

Relax, champ.  I like quality a lot.  But I think diversity is a good
thing, too.  How can diversity be bad?

>[Story about this Sirius computer deleted]
>Thats why people like you thought: OH, IBM MUST BE SOOO GREAT!
>and they went on and bought it.

Oh, now I'm an IBM lover and a NeXT basher.  Wow, I thought it was ok to
be critical on this board... :-)

Seriously, I can't believe your statement that millions of people bought
an IBM based solely on the diversity of add-ons.  You might be right: people
bought a piece of crap because it had lots of add-ons.  But why should
I think add-ons would hurt NeXT?  Then we'd have a great computer *and*
lots of spiffy software and hardware extras.  You haven't convinved me
that diversity is bad.

"Freewhare hurts diversity" is a conjecture.
"Freewhare doesn't hurt diversity" is a conjecture.
The issues are really complicated, and I don't think either "side" is
entirely right, including my own side.

I just want good software and was offering my opinion on why there is not
a lot of good software out there.  This was a mistake, and that's why
I cancelled the original posting.  This issue about freewhare just
gets too emotional.

I care about the fate of NeXT probably a lot more than you think.  Peace.

Mike
"Boy, I hope those dogs eat that cat." -- Tula, age 3