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From: jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MacApp Licensing Fee
Message-ID: <3115@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8-May-87 09:47:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.3115
Posted: Fri May  8 09:47:30 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 9-May-87 18:12:41 EDT
References: <3113@sunybcs.UUCP> <174400030@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu> <727@apple.UUCP> <81@esquire.UUCP>
Organization: Western Software Technology, Vista, CA
Lines: 57

In article <81@esquire.UUCP>, sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
... was a fairly strong diatribe against Apple.  I would like to
respond as a developer and MPW user in their defense.

> And of course these ``legal requirements'' don't apply to Think Technologies,
> right, David?  It's bad enough that you guys are charging hundreds and hundreds
> of dollars (for what is admittedly a decent development system -- at least from
> what I understand, since I can't afford it), but to have to pay royalties on
> top of that?  How 'bout some _pricing_ for the rest of us?

There are no royalties for program MPW assembler, Pascal or C.  The C compiler
is of comparable quality, the shell/development tools are much better,
but it is somewhat slower and less mac-like.

If there were a competing product to MacApp without royalties, I'd be
interested, but right now it offers unique advantages.

> When I use Lightspeed C to develop an application I don't think twice about
> crediting Think for supplying portions of my code.

I object to this violently, since it dilutes my own advertising message.
Needless to say, any final product gets recompiled with MPW even if
it was prototyped in LSC.

> Lightspeed C is an excellent development environment, extremely
> well-supported (no charge for updating from version 1.0 to 2.0, unlike the
> extra charges imposed on those who bought and helped debug the beta version
> of MPW), 

Although originally threatened, there was no charge for going from MPW
1.0bxxx to 1.0.  2.0 (Mac II version) isn't realized so it's not
clear what that charge will be, if any.  Apple is releasing new
manuals with 2.0, which I'm willing to pay for (I hate Think's addendum.)

> No problems, no hassles,
> no license fees, and just generally no BS.

My experience (and that of developers I know) with MPW is
    No problems, no hassles, no license fees, and just generally no BS.

Don't forget, Apple needed a serious development system for their
own use and their major developers, to replace the Lisa Workshop.
That's what MPW was intended for.

If it's too expensive or bulky for many hobbyists, that's actually
fine.  Apple does *NOT* want to put Think, Consulair, TML, etc
out of business.

Quite frankly, I'm glad they're doing it this way.  There's no innovation
without competion and if Apple had the fastest, smallest, most powerful, 
easiest to use and cheapest system (if that's possible) there wouldn't be
any alternatives.  I regularly use MS-Basic, MPW Pascal, MPW Object
Pascal, MacApp, Lightspeed C and MPW C, depending on my requirements.
-- 
	Joel West
	{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww	(ihnp4!gould9!joel if I ever fix news)
	jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu	if you must