This is Lack-of-feedback in view mode; [Up]
Date: Sun 20-Feb-1989 16:36:02 From: Unknown Subject: Re: Lack of feedback In article <71925UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: >In article <4526@umd5.umd.edu>, feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman) says: >> >>NeXT: Tell us what you are going to do! Make a decision on the s-word. >>You have seen the arguments and you should have known about our requirements >>from the start -- we are your target market! >> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >Who is? Do you think that Computer Scientists who want to experiment with >changes to the operating system are the target market? I think small to >medium groups of co-workers with NON-COMPUTER SCIENCE work to do are >the target market, and they don't ask for source. No, I don't think that computer scientists are the target market. Perhaps you (and others) missed my original posting(s) on the s-word (It pains me to type the word). The organization for which I work, the Computer Science Center, provides computing and networking services to the campus. We provide technical assitance to our users and to other departments that maintain their own computers. We provide services -- like a library -- to help forward the educational goals of the university. Our computing environment is large, heterogeneous, and interwoven. In order to make use of a system in our environment, it is sometimes necesary for us to make changes at the operating system level. We do not experiment with or make changes to the operating system gratuitously. We don't paritcularly want to change OS software, but we have to to make all of these vendors' computers play together nicely in a hostile enviromnet. > >Small groups of co-workers naturally includes the faculty in the Spanish >Department, Journalism dept, and so on. It even includes CS faculty. >Eventually, if all goes well, those small groups will include groups >in industry and commerce. They won't want the source, either. While most departments on campus neither have nor want source, they are glad that we do. Having source allows us to help these people solve their problems. For the <insert favorite department here> professor with a single computer on his desk that he and perhaps a grad student use, source means nothing. It is very important to him that he is able to use network services to set his clock, print files, and access other computers. We need source to provide these services to him and hundreds, even thousands of other networked workstations. If this profesor is going to write educational software for the NeXT, he is going to want to know that NeXTs are going to be available in student workstation rooms. Well, guess who runs the student workstation rooms? It is easy to not want source for a single workstation. It is impossible to not need source for hundreds of networked workstations. Please believe me, we've had some experience with this. And please remember, when I say ``workstation'', I mean a multi-tasking, network-integrated, is-slices-and-dices workstation. A VAXstation is a workstation. A PC is not. A Sun is a workstation. A Mac is not. > >Please---reasonable folk can differ on this topic. No flames. ME? I think >NeXT is doing OK. > > lee It is your right to say that you don't want source. Most individuals won't want source. But please, don't argue that I shouldn't be allowed to license source. This is an argument between the people who want source and NeXT. It should not particularly interest those who do not want source. Source is almost never the default. Obtaining source involves paying additional fees and signing away the lives of all offspring, past, present, and future. We pay our dues to AT&T. We pay our dues to DEC. We are willing to pay our dues to NeXT. I am still of the opinion that NeXT should have had a source policy before 0.8 hit the streets. Mark >From: zellers@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Steve Zellers)
Date: Sun 25-Feb-1989 00:49:48 From: Unknown Subject: Re: Lack of feedback >In article <4526@umd5.umd.edu>, feldman@umd5.umd.edu (Mark Feldman) says: >> >>NeXT: Tell us what you are going to do! Make a decision on the s-word. >>You have seen the arguments and you should have known about our requirements >>from the start -- we are your target market! >> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hmmn... Last time I checked, Steve Jobs said that College Students and Institutions for higher education were NeXT's "target market." And as most students are going to use NeXTSTEP and minimal Standardized C, I really don't see what all of this fuss is about NeXTSTEP Source code. NeXT, if they are at all the the last company that Steve Jobs founded, WILL NOT shaft the users of his machine. Any signifigant system changes will be available in the monthly NeXT magizine that NeXT will be sending to each institution who picks up their systems. Refer to the INSTITUTE contract (which I am currently holding) for details... Richard G. Brewer +----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+ | Richard G. Brewer (TRON) | Worcester | rbrewer@wpi.bitnet | | WPI Box 149 | Polytechnic | tron@wpi.wpi.edu | | 100 Institute Rd. | Institute +--------------------------+ | Worcester, Ma 01609-2280 +--------------+ "Power through better | | (508) 792-3231 | VaNdaLs Sack | design and engineering" | +----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+ >From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.