Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!agate!eris!mwm
From: mwm@eris (Mike (I'm in love with my car) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Commercial vs. PD
Message-ID: <10073@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 18 May 88 01:19:40 GMT
References: <8805140029.AA03459@jade.berkeley.edu> <1983@dino.ulowell.edu>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.UUCP (Mike (I'm in love with my car) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 71

[Warning - I've never used AREXX, and this is _not_ a comment on it.
This is a comment on commercial software in general.]

In article <1983@dino.ulowell.edu> miner@dino.ulowell.edu (Rich Miner) writes:
<Oh no, ARexx is commercial!  I guess this means it comes with a clean
<type set manual, and phone support, and updates, and Bill Hawes 
<can put food on his table, and....

Gee, you know that it comes with these things without having bought
it and used them. That's _GREAT_! I wish I could depend on commercial
software to have all those things. I'd even settle for more than one
of them.

<What the hell is wrong with paying a few bucks for a well supported
<extremely useful tool?   I am shipping applications to government 
<contractors, hospitals, national research labs....  I feel a lot
<better about using ARexx then a PD tool - who gives support, who
<fixes bugs?  

Well, if you have a typical commercial product, it bloody well isn't
going to be you providing support and fixing bugs. Of course, your
customers are buying from you, so they'll expect you to provide that
support. On the other hand, if you've got a typical PD application,
YOU, personally, can go tweak the source and fix bugs. And you never
have to worry about getting a reply back on an SPR that has the
dreaded "Fixed in a future release" on it.

<Bill Hawes did not hack this thing up in his spare time.  He designed 
<it, implemented it, and now distributes, supports and maintains it as a 
<full++ time job.  Lets encourage and support these kinds of efforts.

I believe that. Everyone I've talked to who uses AREXX says great
things about it. On the other hand, we're talking about making it a
*standard* macro language for the Amiga. That means you either have to
be able to ship it with your product, or know that the customer will
have it available. You can't depend on a customer having already
bought it, and asking them to buy it will only make them mad. You
could, of course, license AREXX and ship it with your product. But
then people will wind up buying multiple copies, and the only person
who wins is Bill Hawes - at almost every one elses expense.

That's why it'd be better to have a PD version of something like
AREXX. Putting it into one of the existing PD language systems
shounld't be to hard. This is why I don't own AREXX - if I ever want
that, I'll put it into SIOD. I then trade both $'s and time learning
AREXX for time building an interesting tool - something I consider a
win all the way around.

Another alternative would be for CBM to give Bill Hawes some large
amount of money, and include AREXX with a future WB/KS distribution.
The result isn't PD, Steve makes a lot of money, and everybody has a
copy. You now have a _standard_ macro facility that people can use.

<Programs do not become standards because they are PD, they become
<standards through excellence in design, implementation and support -
<and sometimes marketing.

You forgot the most important thing - wide distribution. And all three
modes of software distribution - commercial, shareware and PD/PA - can
have all of these things. Being a commercial product doesn't
automatically make something excellent and well-supported. It does
mean you probably can't get source. Being PD/PA doesn't make something
automatically an overnight hack. It does mean you probably can get
source.

	<mike
--
The road is full of dangerous curves			Mike Meyer
And we don't want to go to fast				mwm@berkeley.edu
We may not make it first				ucbvax!mwm
But I know we're going to make it last.			mwm@ucbjade.BITNET