Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!tut!santra!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!rupert!pcg From: pcg@rupert.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: ISC update Message-ID: Date: 28 Dec 89 22:52:54 GMT References: <511090@nstar.UUCP> <10732@attctc.Dallas.TX.US> <1989Dec25.040854.9409@virtech.uucp> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 38 In-reply-to: cpcahil@virtech.uucp's message of 25 Dec 89 04:08:54 GMT In article <1989Dec25.040854.9409@virtech.uucp> cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes: > In article <511090@nstar.UUCP> larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) writes: > Humph! Why spend 800.00 on X11 when you can get the sources and build > it yourself? ISC has a wonderful ability to take free sources, hack and screw > it up, then turn around and charge you a great deal of money for it. You get X sources, yes. But who is gonna port the server? The x source tape does not include a server for 386 machines/hardware, so it is not just a case of dropping in the software and running. Don't recommend something to somebody else when you don't know the first thing about what you are talking about. Telling somebody to get the X sources and do the port themselves will wast alot more than $800 dollars worth of thier time. Uh oh. The ISC X11 *libraries* (their so called developer's set) cost $795. The *server* costs $295. From ISC just get the server, which is very well done (has a reputation for being the fastest around), and get the libraries and toolkits and clients off the X11 servers or tapes and compile them -- you are likely to get a more recent and more up-to-date version than ISC's. ISC is pricing the libraries at $795 probably to discourage end users from "developing" on their own, while offering the same at 75% discount to developers. Probably their rationale is that they do not want to support the libraries to end users, while probably developers are far fewer and tend to be more technically sophisticated. Don't believe the ISC people when they say that their high prices are because of exacting QA -- for one thing their AT386 terminfo entry has been broken for years now... ISC are *very* good, but they are often as sloppy as anybody. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk