From: Mel Walker <mwalker@novell.com>
Subject: Re: Lets Screw Apple!!!
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A727D4B005011E08@mwalker.npd.provo.novell.com>
X-Xxdate: Thu, 12 Nov 92 16:30:24 GMT
Organization: Society for Anarchic Totalitarianism
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 16:30:53 GMT

In article <BxKItr.39s@Novell.COM> Mel Walker, mwalker@novell.com writes:

It has been brought to my attention that my preceding post, being in a
negative tone, was a waste of bandwidth. I apologize. Perhaps my point
could be made a little better.

Here's the letter I got back:
>Now, that's a really constructive use of net bandwidth. Just because it
>might be beyond your development talents, there's no reason to dampen the
>enthusiasm for others trying to pursue some alternative to Apple's
>shortsighted marketing policies. 

>For the most part, MacTCP has been generally available for little or no
>additional cost. Why would anyone go to the trouble to develop something
>ELSE when a perfectly good product is widely available? Now that a
>perfectly good product is about to stop being widely available, I don't
>doubt that you'll see some work in this area. Lighten up. Encourage
people.
>It certainly can't hurt (any more than your negative comments.)

Some of my reply to this letter follows:
==============================
Several groups of people have developed alternatives to MacTCP, one of
them being the company I work for. So obviously, people have written
something else.

It's not beyond my development talents (at least, I think it's not); it's
just not worth it to me. I also meant to imply that it wouldn't be beyond
the orginal poster's talents. After all, I said "read up on it" not "give
up on it". I would love to do what I can to encourage work on a MacTCP
replacement, if it was likely to be of good quality.

I read this with the same attitude as another posting I read recently
that was in the "anti-selling-system-7" vein. That posting said that
"someone" should develop a cheap replacement OS for the mac, but without
any offers to help in the endeavor. I thought that if it was worth that
much to someone that they wanted to get it for free or almost free, they
should offer to help writing it themselves. It certainly couldn't hurt to
try.

In my experience, "please release it as shareware" _generally_ translates
to "please give me something for (almost) nothing." Sad, but true. This
may not be your experience. In addition, there is already at least one
low-cost solution to the problem: old versions of MacTCP and system
software.

I believe in the free market. What something is "worth" (but only in the
market sense) is what people will pay for it. If people figure that
MacTCP 1.1.1 is too expensive, they won't buy it, but use old versions
coupled with older System software (or some other alternatives).
Therefore, if someone wants to use MacTCP, they can continue to use old
software until (a) MacTCP prices drop, (b) someone releases a reasonable
alternative for a decent price, or (c) they fall so far behind that they
bite the bullet and purchase new software.
==============================
Maybe this explains it better, or in a better tone :-). As I said, I like
to encourage development of new and better quality software. What I don't
encourage is the "I don't like the price because I want something cheap
but new; I want a Porsche for a Yugo price; Let's Screw Apple by selling
something cheaper." If people want to sell something cheaper than Apple
can, fine. That's the free market. That's NOT "screwing them" over. Don't
get so gosh-darned emotional. :-) :-) :-)

--Mel Walker
mwalker@novell.com
Disclaimer: Some Martians landed and stole my opinions. So if these
opinions sound like they're coming from Mars, that's why.