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Date:      Sun, 20 Apr 1997 14:47:41 +0930 (CST)
From:      Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
To:        mallison@konnections.com (mike allison)
Cc:        msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu, scrappy@hub.org, jkh@time.cdrom.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Commercial, Non-Hacker CD Distribution - A thought
Message-ID:  <199704200517.OAA02863@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
In-Reply-To: <335AF9A9.74E327A5@konnections.com> from mike allison at "Apr 20, 97 10:22:50 pm"

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mike allison stands accused of saying:
> I realise that I'm just STUPID, right Mike, so tell me, Why do I have a
> BRAND NEW, LATEST RELEASE, $400 (That's US Too) Linux Commercial package
> on my desk which WARNS in big letters that it may not run on all
> versions of LINUX because of library incompatibilities?

I haven't the faintest idea, Mike.  Why don't you tell us why you have
a package on your desk that warns you about the inability of Linux
distribution management to coordinate with their ISV's?

> You tell me, smart guy, if there isn't a problem out there REAL or
> PERCEIVED, that if I bother to port my product to Linux or BSD that I
> might have a problem with inconsistent libraries and kernels.

Well, if you're an ISV, and we haven't spoken to you about it, then
shit Mike, I'm sorry.  International phone calls in the middle of the
night still cost me money.  Still, do you actually have any problems
running this application on FreeBSD?  Have I, or any of the other
ABI-interested people seen any mail from you on the subject?

Currently, I know of one problem with one product (Franz Lisp) which
appears to actually be a bug in the ABI emulation; I haven't heard
anything about it lately.

If there are problems with applications running under the emulation(s)
we support, then we want to know about them.  We're not telepathic,
and we don't have the financial resources to test everything, so we
depend on the support and encouragement of the user community to get
us by.  You don't, actually, sound very supportive to me, Mike.  You
sound greedy and insistent; although I would love to be wrong about
that.

> I might also add, although you're far to smart to have missed it, that
> Marc was speaking of Star Office as and example only, and said that
> explicitly.

Uhm, right.  This is not an eight-kilo sledge, and I am not pinning
your feet to the floor with hardnails.

> And that my comment, which you must have slept through while discovering
> cold fusion, was that we needed a way to ensure that Commercial vendors
> could know that the hooks they relied on were there in all releases or
> that they were informed of major changes early enough to encorporate
> them into their production cycle.

Er, which is what I, and other ISV contacts _do_.  About a week ago,
we had a volunteer collecting the names of people working with ISV's
in order to formalise and coordinate things a little better; I was
impressed with the initiative.

> I'm sorry if you solve all that over tea, the rest of us just weren't
> informed, unfortunately neither were some vendors....

Well, how about asking?  I don't think there's much more you could ask
for than an answer, and if you have a vendor that's looking for
similar answers, why haven't we heard from you or them?

-- 
]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer        msmith@gsoft.com.au             [[
]] Genesis Software                     genesis@gsoft.com.au            [[
]] High-speed data acquisition and      (GSM mobile)     0411-222-496   [[
]] realtime instrument control.         (ph)          +61-8-8267-3493   [[
]] Unix hardware collector.             "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick  [[



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