Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 10:18:55 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: helbig@MX.BA-Stuttgart.De, andreas@klemm.gtn.com, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Current is currently really a mess (was: Re: Tk/Tcl broken(?)) Message-ID: <199708041718.KAA04267@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <4492.870649823@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Aug 3, 97 04:10:23 pm
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> [Are we sick of this thread yet? ;-)] Just comments on this *one* paragraph... > Most people run the release branches and most people are > *PISSED OFF* that it's been our long-standing policy to support > -current and not -releng, leaving the users of the last release high > and dry with whatever ancient ports snapshot was bundled with their > release. Is that somehow better? Why is no one indignant about that? > It seems to me that failing to support your release users would be > considered almost hallucinogenically weird by anyone in the commercial > software industry, and I've certainly taken my share of annoyed emails > over the issue. Actually, the main failing of Apple, historically, has been that any time there was a tradeoff between ease of use for the user and ease of use for the developer, it was the policy that the user won. This won Apple a lot of die-hard users, who are still around. It won them few developers. Now Apple is, shall we say, "barely around". I think NeXTStep will fix a lot of this, since it redresses many of the shortcomings face by developers (it still has the best ODE going, a true joy to use to make platform-specific and non-portable graphical applications). Anyway, to get back to your question: the lack of indignation is because most people have become innured. Try to run the latest version of Excel on Windows 3.1 (one example). Microsoft has traditionally orphaned legacy systems. That's how it sells new systems, and that's how it shoved DR-DOS's head under the toilet water, and how it's preparing to try to do the same to NetScape by integrating Microsoft browser technology into the OS shell. Not orphaning legacy users is the mistake Novell makes every time it does not cull their API. If a user needs legacy API hooks to talk to your old servers... that user is not buying new servers. And servers are where Novell's bread is buttered. I think FreeBSD has, so far, tread a happy middle of the road. That is, it has limited its mediocraty, but it has at the same time limited its greatness (which is where I get most worked up, when I get most worked up). It has been surprisingly successfuly (surprising to me, anyway) in spite of this. Maybe because its greatness, however restricted by the bonds of artificial importance, is not so limited as the "managed technological advance" in the Microsoft market. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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