Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:32342 comp.sys.mac.programmer:6501 comp.protocols.appletalk:2006 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!cmcl2!ccnysci!alexis From: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.protocols.appletalk Subject: Re: Finally, Peer-to-Peer non-dedicated AppleShare, this month!!! Message-ID: <2041@ccnysci.UUCP> Date: 21 May 89 23:51:13 GMT References: <1968@ccnysci.UUCP> Reply-To: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) Organization: City College of New York Lines: 73 It seems that my posting about peer-to-peer AppleShare has caused a minor flame war. The particularly weird thing about it is that I have not seen *ANY* of the followup articles! (No, it didn't mysteriously wind up in my kill file.) I wouldn't know about it at all if my friend David hadn't mentioned it in passing, and mailed me a copy of one article. Since I only have this one article (by Tim Maroney) from this message thread (though it quotes two others), I don't have the complete picture, but I'll try to clear up a few things. First of all, Tim was quite pissed off when I said that TOPS had no byte-range locking at all. Well, that was in a different article that was not directly related to this one. But, he was right, and what's worse is that I knew this- I just forgot it at the time I was writing. That's why I kept quiet when he posted a correction to that other article- he was right, and I had nothing to add. I also can understand that he still feels angry that Apple changed the rules of the game, but that's hardly my fault. The statement that TOPS is incompatible with AFP, _as it now stands_, is correct. In addition, it has other problems (which are getting lots of press right now) that have nothing to do with this- they're just bugs. These bugs do in fact make TOPS useless for major database work, since my goal when maintaining 60 MB databases is NOT to have to repair corrupted files every week or two. I am NOT going to go into this- if you want to know more, check in last week's PC Week, or MacWeek from a few weeks ago, or talk to TOPS tech support. Anyway, I said that using TOPS with databases was "difficult to impossible." This is absolutely true- it can't be done with FoxBase, and using design mode in 4D is likely to corrupt your database. (It also had major problems with OMNIS for a long time, but that was a bug in OMNIS that was since fixed, after months of complaints, by a fellow who used to work for TOPS [Tracy Lakin].) This comes from Tim's note: >Again, no correction or retraction from Alexis, and this rudeness was >compounded by a statement of intent to violate journalistic ethics by >publishing this false information in MacWeek. This is rather heavy-handed, I think. In regard to databases, my original posting was correct. In any event, why would I want to publish false information??? Tim also warns about negative messages bringing down the wrath of some companies on the net (and the posters). If anyone is likely to be the subject of a lawsuit, it's them! They made fairly specific claims that version 2.0 would be compatible with AppleShare, which as we all know (and regardless of IM-IV) it's not. I can only suggest that in the event of such nasty tactics by vendors, we net.folk return the favor by boycotts, negative word-of-mouth, letters to magazines, and whatever other typical grass-roots activist tactics seem necessary (how about a sit-it at corporate headadquarters :-) :-) ). To get back to my original posting: It was not meant as just another potshot at TOPS (they're too easy a target). They simply got mentioned extensively in the historical information because they make up a large part of macintosh networking history. The message was primarily about the IPT product, and my comment that more exposure for the net was good was in reference (obviously, if you read it again) to my favorable mention of IPT, not my jabs at TOPS (they already know what I think of them). If there were other points made (or other shots taken), please let me know and I'll try to respond to them. I still wish I knew why I haven't seen any of these articles in news. --- Alexis Rosen alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet} alexis@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (last resort)