From: RSD@AppleLink.Apple.COM (Research SW Design, D Goldman,PRT)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.oop.macapp3
Subject: * Takeover Proposal *
Date: 19 Dec 92 08:23:00 GMT
Organization: AppleLink Gateway

Are you all as nervous as I am about Bedrock? Here are a few of the things that
have me worried at this point:
 
- Possible exorbitant license fee. ($10K??? Annual, or what?)
- Possible additional exorbitant license fee for source code.
- Possible non-availability of source code. (Anyone who reads MacAppTech$ will
agree that any substantial project will definitely need read-access to source
just to figure out how to use some of the framework's features, and will almost
certainly need write-access to repair framework bugs.)
- Questionable degree of direct Apple involvement, per one recent report -
    - bad, because Apple should definitely be involved for timely introduction
      of new managers, etc.
    - good?, because Apple has such a dismal track record of standing behind
      its frameworks after convincing us developers to use them
- Questions about WHICH former MacApp creators are helping create Bedrock. (All
of the names I recognize from the past 3 years of MacAppTech$ and MADA
conference reports now have "Taligent" in their e-mail addresses, not
"Symantec".)
- Delivery date????
 
 
So maybe I should plan on keeping my Mac app in MacApp 3.0x forever, and worry
about picking a separate platform for the eventual Windows and UNIX versions.
But the problems with MacApp 3.0x include:
 
- Uncertainty whether bug-fix releases will continue, and for how long. (A
recent posting from Kent Sandvik seemed to suggest that at least some "fixes"
are simply going to be added to the "Known Bugs" document, rather than to the
code itself.)
- Growing obsolescence of the framework, as it falls further and further behind
Mac OS development.
 
Now, maybe the Component Workshop will blow both of these frameworks from
consideration. If not, though, then I have a SERIOUS proposal regarding MacApp:
 
      ****************************************************************
      * Somebody, probably MADA, should BUY MacApp from Apple, and   *
      * hire a few good people to maintain and update it. Full time. *
      * Without transfering them to other projects every six months. *
      ****************************************************************
 
I'm *not* proposing that MADA create MacApp 4.0. But wouldn't it be nice if
there were SOMEBODY reviewing all of the bug reports and discussions on
MacAppTech$ who would then actually change the MacApp source code accordingly?
A LOT of the bug reports are trivial little fixes, with no worries about
distant side-effects, so why should every MacApp developer always have to
individually modify his/her MacApp source?
 
If somebody writes a new module for MacApp (a QuickTime-displaying window, for
example) or rewrites the source to provide a new feature (Object Model support,
for example), why can't the rest of us benefit from that work? If the creator
doesn't want to give away his/her work for free (and judging by the history of
the Class Room project, that seems to be a problem for some people), then MADA
could BUY the rights to add it to MacApp.
 
I would be happy to subscribe to a quarterly CD from MADA. Or maybe Apple would
be willing to distribute MADA's MacApp on ETO. (Then Apple management could
finish what it has started, and COMPLETELY eliminate Apple's budget for MacApp
support.)
 
My basic proposal is this: if Apple is not going to continue FULL support for
MacApp, then they should sell it to somebody else who WILL. There are plenty of
us out here with financial stakes in our current MacApp work to help subsidize
such an effort.
 
Perhaps some of you will have a reaction?
 
-- Dave Goldman
   Research Software Design
 
P.S. I'll download the archives next week, but in the meantime I would
certainly appreciate your sending a copy of your responses directly to me
(ALink: RSD; Internet: RSD@applelink.apple.com)
 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.oop.macapp3