Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ukma!gatech!hao!ames!amdahl!oliveb!felix!preston
From: preston@felix.UUCP (Preston Bannister)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Free RTX (was Re: Changing  to / in TOS)
Message-ID: <22763@felix.UUCP>
Date: 22 Feb 88 22:32:07 GMT
References: <914@xn.LL.MIT.EDU>
Sender: daemon@felix.UUCP
Lines: 43

From article <914@xn.LL.MIT.EDU>, by singer@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Matthew R. Singer):

> Another amusing issue:
 
>    I find it truely fascinating all this discussion about David Beckmeyer
>    releasing RTX into the public domain.  I can't believe how few people
>    even knew it existed.  They want it free, but are willing to pay a
>    small amount for the docs.  Well I have news for you all, its never
>    NEVER been that cost prohibitive. All of 69.95 list and its been around
>    for about 2 years...  How can you expect him to support it for less?
 
My take on this is a little different.  I've known about RTX for about
as long it's been around.  I even bought the original (?) version of
the MT C-shell.  

My problem with RTX was why write software for it if only people who
had RTX (a very small group) could run it?  If DavidB makes RTX (the
runtime module...) free, then he might see more widespread _use_ of
RTX.  With a critical mass of users his sales of documentation (?)
might well bring in more dollars than he has seen so far.

It's a gamble, but probably a good one.

You could draw analogies from the histories of Unix and the UCSD
P-system.  The P-system spread very rapidly when it was cheap, and I
understand it brought in a surprising amount for money for UCSD.  Then
they sold it to SoftTech, which charged large amounts of money, and put
in very little work (at Western Digital we did about the same amount of
work with two people part-time).  Not surprisingly, the P-system
practically died.

-----
Preston L. Bannister
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Preston L. Bannister
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