On Mon, 15 Jun 1998 21:16:54 -0700 Chuq Von Rospach
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>How widely available are these things? Is there a web site? and/or mail
>lists to discuss it?
There is some stuff on our FTP server, others want to have their tools on
their own site so they can update them at will, yet others send them to
you on request (typically you search the archives of LSTSRV-L or post),
because they figure that if they put it up for anonymous FTP, they will
be expected to spend at least 1h/week enhancing them for OTHERS :-)
Likewise we are reluctant to put anything on our site when we know the
author graduated/left and people will come to us for support no matter
how many times we say AS IS on the FTP banner. THAT is a case where a
commercial product has a disadvantage, no matter how many disclaimers are
shown, anything on the vendor's site is expected to work, be reasonably
bug-free and be fixed if it breaks. This makes it more difficult for the
vendor to assemble a collection of tools. IBM had hundreds of top-quality
internal tools that it took over 15 years of lobbying for them to
release, because they were worried that people would use them and depend
on them, and then blame IBM if they broke and millions were lost. There
used to be a "black-market" operation, people who worked for IBM
temporarily would "bring a tape home" and give their friends a copy. IBM
didn't mind at all (otherwise people wouldn't have done it, nobody wants
to be sued by IBM!) Since it was illegal they weren't about to be sued by
their customers, which was their only concern. Likewise people knew
better than to depend on an illegal copy of an IBM tool for anything but
personal use. Eventually, they agreed to release selected tools on
limited terms. It was also possible to get them officially if you were a
big enough customer and signed enough disclaimers (and they would give
you the source code). Obviously the Linux team does not have this problem
:-)
Eric
