Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!ahmcs!alan From: alan@ahmcs.uucp (Alan Mintz) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: Ashton-Tate (was: Judge reverses ruling) Keywords: dBASE IV, Ashton-Tate Message-ID: <186@ahmcs.uucp> Date: 1 May 91 20:03:42 GMT References: <1991Apr24.160831.9828@dbase.A-T.COM> <182@ahmcs.uucp> <1991Apr29.211326.8090@dbase.a-t.com> Organization: Micro-Quick Systems, Inc. Lines: 117 In article <1991Apr29.211326.8090@dbase.a-t.com>, awd@dbase.a-t.com (Alastair Dallas) writes: > In article <182@ahmcs.uucp>, alan@ahmcs.uucp (Alan Mintz) writes: > > In article <1991Apr24.160831.9828@dbase.A-T.COM>, awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) writes: > > > to the effect that we should now settle with Fox and get on with competing > > > in the marketplace, not the courts. > > > > Now I could be wrong, but I doubt you'll find many people willing to cheer > > with you... > > Well, everyone seems to say that we should compete in the marketplace. > Or are you just saying that everyone wants us to lose the suit? Yes, I am saying that everyone wants you to lose the suit (from what I have heard, seen, and read). The best way to "get even" with Fox is to outsell them (which you do). > I've said > that I wouldn't have sued Fox, but since we have and we're a publicly > traded company, how can we do anything but proceed? There is no shame in admitting that the suit is, perhaps, not worth continuing. Many would view such an action as new management's willingness to do what is right. > > I find myself in a position of HAVING to convert a Fox application to > > dBase IV because it needs to run on VMS. > > Is that a "thanks for making dBASE IV cross-platform" I hear? :-). Did you > know that compiled .dbo files are binary-compatible so you can > develop on a PC or a Macintosh for a VAX target or vice versa? You're > welcome :-). Yes, I suppose it is a thank you, with the reservations that followed. > > Thank for > > Step IVward, which takes care of the change in array syntax... > > You're welcome again :-) Not taking the place of the , but > Ashton-Tate publishes Step IVward. but you didn't write it. (This may not be fair, I don't know if you commissioned the work from Rich or simply bought the publishing rights after the fact). > > ...(when was the last > > time you saw a high-level langauge compiler or interpreter change a primary > > syntax rule ?). > > Ask Fox why they don't support the language as defined by the industry > leader. They had arrays first, but we did them right and they failed > to change theirs. (Hold your flames--I'm being intentionally provocative > here; Fox is a fine product and their arrays are wonderful, okay?) Perhaps I was f**ked on this one :-) > > It sure is a pain to try and come up with substitutes for things that just > > aren't in dBase IV like filtered indices, ALL those SYS functions (only some > > of which have similar equivalents), etc. > > Yes, isn't ? SYS() a fabulously mnemonic language construct? > What do they have in SYS() that you need? Tell us and we'll put it in and > then you'll have it on all the platforms that we support (unlike FoxPro's > incompatibilities with their Macintosh version). While I agree that SYS(14,1) is somewhat difficult to remember unless you use it a lot, the concept of putting "product-specific additions that were not part of the language at large" in a generic SYS function would seem to avoid conflicts with the syntax of other xBase implementations. Any and all of the SYS() funcs that StepIVward uses (DOS) .BINs for (not much good on a VAX). I'll dig up the list I did 3 months ago. Along the same lines, a built-in KEYBOARD command would save a lot of additional flag-passing code needing to get around it's absence. > dBASE IV v1.1 supports "filtered indices" with the FOR clause added to > the INDEX command. This was based on StepIVward's documentation (since it has not been updated to translate to 1.1) Yippee ! This would have been one of the biggest pains to get around. > > This suit, from the beginning, seems like nothing but sour grapes. > > That's how it seemed to me, too, which is why I wouldn't have done it. > What people forget is that we're suing them over the product they sold > in 1986 which was an absolutely exact clone of dBASE III PLUS. They > copied every character on every screen, the exact wording of every > error message, everything. The money from that let them develop > products that were at least somewhat different. If you develop > software, I don't remember enough about 2.0 to recall if it was truly a verbatim copy. If so, you have a point. We're dealing with someone who is trying to do a look-and-feel copy of our software, and you're right, it's infuriating. > imagine how you'd react to competing with your own product > in the marketplace. Not quite accurate. You were competing with a product that was technically superior. Fox's low market share (by comparison) indicates (IMHO) that the people that bought Fox were those qualified to judge the technical differences. They probably couldn't have cared less how the error messages were worded, or how the screens looked - they bought it on technical merit. -- < Alan H. Mintz | alan@mq.com | ...!uunet!ahmcs!alan >