Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!sunic!tut!ra!uwasa.fi!ts
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: old .TPUs under TP5.5???
Message-ID: <1990Feb27.193130.4351@uwasa.fi>
Date: 27 Feb 90 19:31:30 GMT
References: <19557@mephisto.UUCP> <1968@bucket.UUCP> <90055.172954GILLA@QUCDN.BITNET> <1591@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Vaasa
Lines: 32

In article <1591@maytag.waterloo.edu> dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) writes:
>In article <90055.172954GILLA@QUCDN.BITNET> GILLA@QUCDN.QueensU.CA (Arnold G. Gill) writes:
... some text deleted ...
>>It sounds to me like an idiotic ploy to keep the user community locked into
>>using Borland software and forcing them to buy new versions whenever they
>>come out.  With so much public domain material around, this is really a bad
>>practice.
>
>It seems like just the opposite to me:  a strong disincentive to upgrade.  
>After all, if you upgrade your compiler, you lose all your sourceless .TPUs.
>
>Or, from an optimistic point of view, a strong encouragement to library writers
>to release source code. 

   I quite agree with what is being said above, but having
distributed some of these sourceless (and priceless , since they are
PD :-) tpus myself, I don't see any real incentives from the
*author's* point of view to release the sources.  I do, of cource,
see that Borland's policy makes having the sources even more
desirable from the *user's* point of view.  But what is in it for
the author other than being a good sport.  Nothing. 
   As I've said in an earlier message, I (too) feel that Borland's
tpu policy is badly counterproductive to its otherwise commendable
quality.  Personally, I am going to stick to using TP 5.0, since
upgrading is not worth the hassle! They are going to lose much sales
potential, and in a market economy that is going to be costly in the
end. 

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi        (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3)
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun