Xref: utzoo comp.lang.objective-c:287 comp.sys.next:18249 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!csus.edu!beach.csulb.edu!nic.csu.net!csun.edu!ms.secs.csun.edu!mrs From: mrs@ms.secs.csun.edu (Mike Stump) Newsgroups: comp.lang.objective-c,comp.sys.next Subject: Re: health of Stepstone and ObjC Message-ID: <1991May31.065729.26949@csun.edu> Date: 31 May 91 06:57:29 GMT References: <2058@camex.COM> <1991May23.031433.11017@netcom.COM> <1991May23.075820.983@agate.berkeley.edu> Sender: usenet@csun.edu Reply-To: mrs@ms.secs.csun.edu (Mike Stump) Organization: School of Engineering and Computer Science, CSU Northridge Lines: 51 In article <1991May23.075820.983@agate.berkeley.edu> izumi@mindseye.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) writes: >In article <1991May23.031433.11017@netcom.COM> > rkitts@netcom.COM (Rick Kitts) writes: >>In article <2058@camex.COM> geoff@circus.camex.com (Geoffrey Knauth) writes: >>> I've been hearing ugly rumors that [...] Stepstone [...] >>> [is] in trouble. Someone please tell me this is disinformation. >> >> I spoke with the president of Stepstone today regarding Stepstones >> financial situation. I was told by the person who answered the >> phone (not the pres) that SS was undergoing a ``reorganization'' >> and that ``very(?) few employees were left.''. [...] > > I am a bit confused. > > How critical is Stepstone's continued operation to NeXT and NeXT > users? > > What part of NeXT software is directly dependent on Stepstone? > > I am confused because I thought Objective-C compiler technology > is now/soon part of GNU compiler, which is free. I love free market economies. Simply put, Stepstone was pulling in to much money, not really providing the bang for the buck. NeXT knew this (or found it out) decided to cut cost, knew they could do better than to continue to give any more money to Stepstone. So they extened the GNU compiler (for which they don't have to give a red cent to anyone if they don't want to), and came up with a more cost effective solution for their needs. They relied on Stepstone in the past, now they are ``free'' (pardon the pun). I think everyone should drop their current compiler vendor, take half the money, and give it to a company like cygnus or some other support organization that supports a un-encumbered compiler. I think in the long run, this will prove to be a win. A win for everybody involved. Take a look at what it has done for NeXT, no more money to Stepstone, a C++ compiler for free, and others will do some bug fixing, bug reporting, documentation, maintainance, and upgrading, as well as things like porting, so that maybe if they choose to switch to (name almost ANY popular processor) in the future, not a whole lot of real work needs to be done. (The above are optionions of mine, I do not claim ANY of the above as fact. I would like to see e-mail if you followup to this.) -- If I can get mail to you via a legally registered fully qualified domain name, you could be on Saturn for all I care. -- quote by Bob Sutterfield