Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!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: 30 Mar 91 22:05:58 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: 43 In-Reply-To: kandall@nsg.sgi.com's message of 29 Mar 91 14:35:26 GMT If showcase were sold separately, it would be an unbundled (adj., not bundled) software package, even though SGI never actually unbundled (vt., to split off) it. The question which arises is should all customers pay for DWB, even if they don't use it. SHould the customers who do not use DWB foot the bill for those who do? Maybe they should? But maybe they shouldn't? Not including DWB or at least an "nroff -man" equivalent for man pages in the Developer's Option is brain damaged. I don't particularly care whether it's AT&T's fault or not. It basically means that customers can't integrate many free or commercial third party packages nicely into IRIX. Most new IRIX users and those coming from BSD systems find it disorienting enough even with man pages. Because DWB is an unbundled product, many IRISes around here aren't useful unless you can find a Sun with similar software to read the man pages on. Pretty silly. Also, when a company does sell unbundled software, it would be a big help if its sales force informed customers' purchases. I don't think our sales rep ever mentioned DWB. Not that it would have done much good; most of us are pretty dense BSDers here, and I doubt that it would have occurred to us that we had any use for DWB. After all, we don't use the IRISes for any doc prep. (Hopefully, these otherwise fruitless DWB posting festivals have at least educate some users to order DWB, but that's really the sales force's job.) Sun's no better on this count. We don't learn that something has been unbundled (like Fortran) until we upgrade and paniced users appear. My point about site licenses also stands. We'll soon have a group license on Suns for everything from C++ to Common Lisp to SunVision. It's unlikely that the same will be done for IRISes on campus because there are so many fewer of them. Since software is a big factor in hardware purchases, unbundled software puts SGI at a disadvantage. Jim Helman Department of Applied Physics Durand 012 Stanford University FAX: (415) 725-3377 (jim@KAOS.stanford.edu) Work: (415) 723-9127 P.S. awf, an awk-based "nroff -man" hack by Henry Spencer is available by anonymous ftp to fresnel.stanford.edu in pub/4D.