HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: emery@Dr_No.mitre.org (David Emery)
Subject: Re: 200 software patents in two months - what's going on?
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:27:40 GMT

My understanding of the situation is that the 'big boys' are rushing
to get patents to use as 'trading fodder'.  E.g.  Vendor ABC and
Vendor DEF (both three-letter computer companies) have cross-licensing
agreements for each other's patents.  If ABC doesn't meet its "quota"
of new patents, and DEF does, then under the terms of the agreement,
ABC has to pay more money to DEF for use of DEF's patents.  

The main problem with this scenario is that eventually, the few will
crowd out the many, as the little guys won't have portfolios of
patents to use in trade.  To my way of thinking, this is the greatest
danger of the entire software patent issue:  that it has a substantial
potential to create monopolies or obligarchies (is that the right term
for group monopolies?)

				dave
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
From: act@obee.ipl.rpi.edu (just another programmer)
Subject: Re: 200 software patents in two months - what's going on?
Reply-To: night@acm.rpi.edu
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 06:04:49 GMT

wicklund@intellistor.com (Tom Wicklund) writes:

>I know of no historical precedent to suggest that software
>patents will create a monopoly or oligarchy.  In fact, the only times
>monopolies or oligarchies develop and last for any length of time
>(more than a few years) is if they have government enforcing their
>status by prohibiting competitors.

Your knowledge of the history of technology is lacking then.  In the
first half of this century, companies like GE, RCA, AT&T, and Westinghouse
used patents to gain monopolies in their respective fields.  They would
even file for patents in other fields as bargaining chips with the 
other major companies to get any patents the other companies might have
that would weaken their monopolies.  I can get you references if you
like.

>One of the main problems with software patents is that software is
>much easier to produce than physical machines.  Thus many, many more
>people are running into patent restrictions and much more feeling that
>independently inventing something should not be prohibited.

I think that books like Brooks' _The Mythical Man-Month_ disprove the
idea that software is much easier to produce than physical machines.

>I'm not trying to argue for or against software patents here.  But the
>scare tactics of software dominated by a few large companies have no
>basis in fact.

As I have pointed out, this is not true.

--
Trip Martin
From: ann@euclid.JPL.NASA.GOV (Ann Farny)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: WP Format Converters
Date: 31 Jul 92 00:14:53 GMT
Reply-To: ann@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech

I am trying to learn about and locate conversion programs between
document formats, such as WordPerfect to other formats.  What such
programs exist and are they available by anonymous ftp?

I appreciate any help in this area.

Ann Farny
ann@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov

-- 
ann
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
From: tbecker@acht.informatik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Becker)
Subject: How to change View Options defaults?
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 08:16:06 GMT

I would like to have my own View Options defaults when FrameMaker (3.0)
starts up. For example, I'd prefer to have a visible grid of 1/2 cm
instead of the default 1/2".
I have already had a look at the fminit directory, but all you can change
there seems to be the location of the buttons and their descriptive labels,
*not* the contents of the buttons.

Anyone out there who knows how to change the View Options defaults?

-- 
Thomas Becker                       e-mail: tbecker@informatik.uni-kl.de
Computer Science Department                      phone: +49 631 205 3295
University of Kaiserslautern, P.O. Box 3049        fax: +49 631 205 3558
D-6750 Kaiserslautern, Germany	                 Nothing to discalim ...
-- 
Thomas Becker                       e-mail: tbecker@informatik.uni-kl.de
Computer Science Department                      phone: +49 631 205 3295
University of Kaiserslautern, P.O. Box 3049        fax: +49 631 205 3558
D-6750 Kaiserslautern, Germany	                 Nothing to discalim ...
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
From: harding@sun444.nas.nasa.gov (Steve Harding)
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Organization: NASA/Ames Research Center
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 16:00:43 GMT
Reply-To: harding@sun444.nas.nasa.gov (Steve Harding)

In article <MERLYN.92Jul23142709@romulus.reed.edu> merlyn@romulus.reed.edu (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
>regarding the AT&T memo:
>
>this exactly fits my experiences as a technical author for the past 15 years.
>
>A WYSIWYG is great for 1-up posters and small documents, but the
>moment something gets to be over 20 pages long or written by more than
>one author or maintained over time, you lose -- in a major way.

I disagree.  I have produced books over over 600 pp using FrameMaker.
Portions were created by other authors.  We had no problems.

]...[

>Case in point:
>
>I co-wrote "Programming Perl" (from O'Reilly and Associates) with
>Larry Wall (the creator of the Perl language).  We were 1000 miles
>apart for all but the signing party at its debut.  Yet we achieved
>clean solid seamless merging of our respective texts because I was
>able to provide a limited troff macro package that forced us to focus
>on the writing and not the representation.
>
>Now, I face a similar challenge on its sequel (tentatively titled
>"Learning Perl"), but with FrameMaker (on a Mac) rather than troff
>(all of OR&A's books are being done in Frame these days).  My
>experience so far has been that the process is *much* slower, because
>I have to keep thinking about design issues.  And I haven't even
>*begun* the phase of the work that will involve collaberation, but
>just thinking through the process is scaring me already.

It would seem to me that OR&A would/should have provided you with
templates.  That way you need not be concerned with design issues.

>For example, sometimes I'd send a piece of troff text to larry.  He'd
>edit it, and send me back the edited version.  I'd simply run that
>through diff (even if I had changed the draft in the meanwhile), and
>boom, there's the parts he changed.  Way too easy to merge!  Try
>*that* with a Frame doc!

Change bars with cut & paste.

>And I could also send the doc to others.  Troff is nearly universal
>now that there's a GNU -roff.  And even if they didn't want to format
>it, the source text is recognizable even with the embedded formatting
>controls.  MIF?  You've got to be kidding.
>
>I'm not even going to bring up what the performance differences are
>for me between a good command-line interface that I can layer with
>scripts, and a stoopid point-and-shoot mac-type luser interface.
>
>Grumph.  "Learning Perl" is going to be a tough project.  Down with
>WYSIWYGs for big things!

All of the above proves the point that I made in an earlier post.  Authors
are most comfortable in the environment they are used to.  Personally, I
couldn't wait to forget n/troff.

steve
--
harding@nas.nasa.gov (work)     steveh@cupertino.ca.us (play -- 408.252.0578)
              Prince trapped in the body of a dirty old man.
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
From: Per Harwe
Subject: Re: *** HELP !!! *** Need to type a `tab' in a table cell
Reply-To: ebuhwe@ebu.ericsson.se
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson TX
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:45:17 GMT

In article 2330@bmerh85.bnr.ca, myhui@bnr.ca (Michael Hui) writes:
>I have a table cell paragraph format (that is, a paragraph format
>I use only in the cell of a table) that contains tabs, which I want
>to use. But I cannot type a tab character, since the tab key moves
>me over to the next cell. Any suggestions would be gratefully
>acknowledge publicly.
>

Use <Escape> <Tab>  it works.


---
Per Harwe       	 	       | Internet: ebuhwe@ebu.ericsson.se
Ericsson Business Communications, Inc. | UUCP:   uunet!ericsson.com!ebuhwe
Anaheim, CA.			       |
The opinions are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash)
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Organization: The Instrumentality
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 04:45:38 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In article <1992Jul22.231152.4991@informix.com> robertw@informix.com (Robert Weinberg) writes:
>In article <HAMM.92Jul22094612@toto.austoto.sps.mot.com>  
>hamm@austoto.sps.mot.com (Steve Hamm) writes:

>>Lest I be misconstrued, there is
>> no doubt that WYSIWYG is more productive for advertising
>> layout, for pictures, and anytime form is more important
>> than content.

>Yes, if the content is text, and if readers will be just as happy no
>matter how it's formatted, you can't beat an all-text environment. WYSIWYG
>can be a real waste - and add a lot of complexity - in that case.

Hmmm. So TROFF is useful--as long as it isn't needed to do any formatting?
Yes, I suppose so...any lousy tool is "useful" in this sense, as long as
you don't have to use it.

>The idea of tossing everything into a GUI when the terminal ends up just
>used as a vt-100 emulator has always struck me as an incredible waste.
>WYSE terminals could replace half the GUIs in use.

How many terminal windows can you open on your WYSE? I usually run with at
least four on my Sun, each open on a different host. _And_ applications
like FrameMaker that don't run too well on the WYSE.


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: clarke@mahakala.corp.sgi.com (David Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Date: 23 Jul 92 15:51:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: odin.1992Jul23.155110.2648
Reply-To: clarke@mahakala.corp.sgi.com (David Clarke)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA

In article <1992Jul23.045118.27744@news.eng.convex.com> cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) 
writes:

>Why does WYSIWYG have to add _any_ complexity? You can give a writer (one
>who doesn't care to mess with formatting decisions) a FrameMaker template.
>If the template is well-designed, all the writer has to do is fill in the
>blanks. It's as simple as typing text.

It might be interesting to rerun the troff vs frame test that Steve Hamm refers with
a Frame template.  Or, you could eliminate the troff macros and force the troff side to 
work with raw formatting instructions.  Either way, this would be a more accurate test of 
relative productivity than having one side rely on auto-formatting and forcing the other
to format line-by-line. 

-----------------
David Clarke
clarke@corp.sgi.com
From: steveh@grafex.cupertino.ca.us (Steve Harding KA6ETB)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: Re: MS word -> Frame...how ?
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 20:21:03 PDT
Distribution: world
Organization: The GRAFex Company

skow@cs.utwente.nl (Jacek Skowronek) writes:

> In article F69BoB4w164w@grafex.cupertino.ca.us, steveh@grafex.cupertino.ca.us
> 
> >Piece of cake.  Start Frame, then open the MS Word document.  FM3 on the Mac
> >has a superior Word2mif filter.  FM will filter your Word doc then open it
> >as a Maker doc.  Be advised that the paragraph tags are picked up from the
> >Word doc, so you may have to tweak and twiddle these.
> >
> >steve
> 
> Does this apply also to Sun Framemaker 3?

That I can't answer.

steve
From: mad@motatl.UUCP (Mark Davidson)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: MS Powerpoint to Frame
Summary: MS Powerpoint to Frame MIF conversion tool
Keywords: PowerPoint Frame MIF
Date: 21 Jul 92 17:15:03 GMT
Organization: Motorola Technical Systems Division (TSD), Atlanta, GA
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4


I am looking for a Powerpoint to MIF conversion tool.  We have several
powerpoint files that we need to convert to frame 2.1 or 3.0.  

Thanks...

-- 
Mark Davidson -  INET: mad@atl.mcd.mot.com  UUCP: {emory,gatech}!motatl!mad
Motorola Technical Systems Division (TSD)
400 Interstate N. Pkwy, Ste 450, Atlanta, GA 30339  Hep Me...Hep Me! I've been
Phone: 404-933-8628     FAX: 404-952-0892           hypnotized! - Disclaimer
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
From: jdb@sunbim.be (Jurgen Debedts)
Subject: Putting Draft in the background...
Keywords: DRAFT, FAQ, 4
Reply-To: jdb@sunbim.be
Organization: BIM Information Technology N.V. Belgium
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 14:13:09 GMT

Hello There,

These goes out to the Postscript wizards out there:
In the FAQ mailing question 4 indicated a way to add the DRAFT marking to a document. Well now. I tested this, and I got some starnge results. I was doing this on a Sun Sparc desktop running SUNOS 4.1.1, with the OPENLOOK/NeWS 3.0 graphical environment. I was running Frame 3.1 OpenLook.

What Happened: When I include the solution, the word DRAFT appears on my document, so I can see it on my screen. But when printing this document, DRAFT dissapears, just as if it wasn't there. ( On SparcPrinter with NewsPrint). As I suspected NewsPrint of doing strange things, I printed to a file, and looked at the result with OpenLook's PageView utility, and yep, once again no sign of DRAFT. 

Is there anybody out there who has seen this problem before, or who has found another solution? 

Thanks for helping me out!

Reply to me by E-mail, I will summerise to the net.

Happy Frame-ing....

                                         ____________________   
                 Debedts Jurgen         |####################|  
               Software Support          ____  |#| |#|  _   _
         e-mail : jdb@sunbim.be         |####| |#| |#| |#| |#|
                                         ____  |#| |#| |#| |#|
                      BIM sa-nv         |####| |#| |#| |#| |#|
                  Kwikstraat, 4          ______|#|_|#|_|#|_|#|
        B-3078 Everberg Belgium         |####################|
        Phone : +32-2/718.28.11         |####################|
          Fax : +32-2/725.47.83         |####################|
From: cortesi@informix.com (David Cortesi)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: Re: Device tty?
Date: 29 Jul 92 19:28:40 GMT
Reply-To: cortesi@informix.com
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <8eRKDRb0BwwuRKT64M@transarc.com> Bill_Chiles@transarc.com writes:
> Does anyone know how to get FrameMaker to dump reasonable "text only" files?
> The problem is that they literally dump text only in left justified
> line-oriented packets.

I have had reasonable luck producing ascii output using simply 
Save As... and specifying text output.  Is this what you have tried?

Paragraphing and (to the best of my recollection) centering and right
justification  were preserved. I don't know what Frame does when the
original para style had full justification on; our para styles are all
ragged-right, and it comes out ok in ascii. 

The major problem we encountered was that lines come out too long.
A reasonable page width using 9pt proportional text can easily run
over 80 characters, causing problems when the ascii is edited with vi.

If you mean to do this frequently, you should do something like this.
First, set up a style template for the purpose. It would have all
your standard para tags by name, but revised to use a monospaced
font (courier, bleagh), ragged-right, and margins adjusted to allow
a max of 80 chars/line.

Make a copy of a document with New; Use Formats to apply the
text template; and Save As text only.  Should work.
From: merlyn@romulus.reed.edu (Randal L. Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Date: 23 Jul 92 21:27:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: romulus.MERLYN.92Jul23142709
Organization: Reed College

regarding the AT&T memo:

this exactly fits my experiences as a technical author for the past 15 years.

A WYSIWYG is great for 1-up posters and small documents, but the
moment something gets to be over 20 pages long or written by more than
one author or maintained over time, you lose -- in a major way.

And guess which kind of document is most often created in the industry?

You'd think someone would have figger'ed it out by now. :-)

Case in point:

I co-wrote "Programming Perl" (from O'Reilly and Associates) with
Larry Wall (the creator of the Perl language).  We were 1000 miles
apart for all but the signing party at its debut.  Yet we achieved
clean solid seamless merging of our respective texts because I was
able to provide a limited troff macro package that forced us to focus
on the writing and not the representation.

Now, I face a similar challenge on its sequel (tentatively titled
"Learning Perl"), but with FrameMaker (on a Mac) rather than troff
(all of OR&A's books are being done in Frame these days).  My
experience so far has been that the process is *much* slower, because
I have to keep thinking about design issues.  And I haven't even
*begun* the phase of the work that will involve collaberation, but
just thinking through the process is scaring me already.

For example, sometimes I'd send a piece of troff text to larry.  He'd
edit it, and send me back the edited version.  I'd simply run that
through diff (even if I had changed the draft in the meanwhile), and
boom, there's the parts he changed.  Way too easy to merge!  Try
*that* with a Frame doc!

And I could also send the doc to others.  Troff is nearly universal
now that there's a GNU -roff.  And even if they didn't want to format
it, the source text is recognizable even with the embedded formatting
controls.  MIF?  You've got to be kidding.

I'm not even going to bring up what the performance differences are
for me between a good command-line interface that I can layer with
scripts, and a stoopid point-and-shoot mac-type luser interface.

Grumph.  "Learning Perl" is going to be a tough project.  Down with
WYSIWYGs for big things!

Just another Perl (and Frame) hacker,
--
Randal L. Schwartz / Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095
merlyn@reed.edu (guest account) merlyn@ora.com (better for permanent record)
cute quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon -- home of the California Raisins!"
From: steveh@grafex.cupertino.ca.us (Steve Harding KA6ETB)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 17:27:39 PDT
Distribution: world
Organization: The GRAFex Company

hamm@austoto.sps.mot.com (Steve Hamm) writes:
]...[
 
> The question, then, is, "How much *less* productive is FrameMaker than
> troff?" (Or any other markup language, for that matter, for the purpose
> of producing documentation.)

I have done document design and writing using both.  I find that the REALLY
nice thing about troff is that it is so easy to forget.  I did a mental
core dump in about two days.

]...[
> From: npn@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (nils-peter.nelson)
> Newsgroups: comp.text
> Subject: Why We Didn't Give You WYSIWYG troff
> Date: 2 Aug 91 21:34:30 GMT
> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
]...[
>                               But our conclusion for text
> was: let the software determine the layout, not the
> author.  An intentional result of this is a very
> consistent document appearance across geographically
> disparate groups. (Style is not as easy to enforce with
> WYSIWYG systems.)

Style is not easy to enforce with ANY system.  Any writer who thinks he is
a troff guru can mess with the macros.  Trust me, I know.

> I'd enjoy seeing responses, since this is an important
> issue to all of us.  Lest I be misconstrued, there is
> no doubt that WYSIWYG is more productive for advertising
> layout, for pictures, and anytime form is more important
> than content.  But for the sort of industrial-strength
> documentation we do at AT&T, batch markup languages
> appear to have an advantage.

I fail to see the advantage.  The bulk of the work gets done by those who
are comfortable in their environment.  Personally, I am more at home with
FM.  The relearning curve (and the pain) of going back to troff is more
than I am ready for.

steve
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash)
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Organization: The Instrumentality
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 04:51:18 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In article <1992Jul22.231152.4991@informix.com> robertw@informix.com (Robert Weinberg) writes:

>Yes, if the content is text, and if readers will be just as happy no
>matter how it's formatted, you can't beat an all-text environment. WYSIWYG
>can be a real waste - and add a lot of complexity - in that case.

Why does WYSIWYG have to add _any_ complexity? You can give a writer (one
who doesn't care to mess with formatting decisions) a FrameMaker template.
If the template is well-designed, all the writer has to do is fill in the
blanks. It's as simple as typing text.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: robertw@informix.com (Robert Weinberg)
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
Date: 22 Jul 92 14:28:01 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <18486@drutx.ATT.COM> russ@druhi.ATT.COM (RauhauserR) writes:
> 
> Has anyone collected hard data on how much more "productive" a
> writer is with FrameMaker as opposed to troff?
> 
> Even if you're lacking hard data, but do have experience in this
> area, I wonder if you'd be willing to offer an estimated figure
> for productivity increase?  Any input, using any basis of
> reasoning, would be gratefully appreciated.
> 
> Please send responses directly to:
> 
> 	   russ@druhi.att.com
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Russ Rauhauser

Our publications group converted from troff to FrameMaker just before I came on  
board. From listening to my colleagues, troff was a complete nightmare by  
comparison. One example: in order to see the result of formatting, the document  
had to be compiled and printed over-night. Then, _next moring_, one could look  
at the print-out and decide if, for instance, a certain column of a table  
needed to be widened.

My understanding it that there is no comparison; maybe one of my own colleagues  
from the Informix troff days will respond with some details.
--
+==============================+===============================+
|       Rob Weinberg           | Workstation publications tech |
| Email : robertw@informix.com |       Graphic designer        |
| Voice : 415-926-6754         |    <imagine your ad here>     |
+==============================+===============================+
Newsgroups: comp.text.frame