NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/misc-part1/6521

Text File | 1996-08-05 | 5.2 KB | 108 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.applications
Path: admaix.sunydutchess.edu!ub!dsinc!scala!news
From: [e-mail] (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Re: Ethics of joining CompuServe to DL B&P
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet administrator)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 23:41:46 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Dave Haynie)
References: <4g9u2q$[e-mail]> <4gbe3k$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4gg46o$[e-mail]> <4gj94p$[e-mail]>
Nntp-Posting-Host: gator
Organization: Scala Computer Television, US Research Center

In <4gj94p$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Shelly R. Rodewald) writes:
>Joseph Crowe (jcrowe) wrote:
>: [e-mail] (singh) wrote:
>: >Hmm I never thought about that...guess that wouldn't be unethical since
>: >compuserve *gives* you ten hours free...just out of curiosity is there an
>: >ascii manual that comes with it?  Also any other input on whether or not
>: >using free hours to dl would be ethical, albeit legal?

Compuserve is letting you on so you can try out their service. If
they're not restricting you in any way during that trial period,
you're in no way ethically required to add more limits. At least in my
way of rekoning. There are quite a few services on CI$ that you might
have a one-time use for. CI$ is probably counting on the occasional
drop-in user like this to stick around beyond the trial, perhaps
attracted by other stuff along the way. That's how they sell the
service, and why I seem to get at least one more CI$ or AOL disc in
the mail every week.

>   How about the ethics of Microsloth buying Blue Ribbon to kill B&P
>   Pro?

Microsoft didn't by Blue Ribbon to kill B&P Pro. First of all, they
know very little about the Amiga market. Amigas, at the time, were out
of production, and of no significance to them. They gain nothing by
eliminating B&P Pro from the Amiga market. Yet, they have no interest
in supporting it.

>Don't tell me you think they bought them to get the "software
>technology",

Of course they wanted Blue Ribbon's software technology. First, I
suspect it was a good deal; many companies with strong Amiga roots
have been in bad shape these past few years. Secondly, Blue Ribbon has
consumer-level music products under Windows, things like Jam! and
Super Jam! Microsoft had no music products at the time. They clearly
aren't interested in supporting the Pro music market -- they could
have gone after Twelve Tone Systems (now Cakewalk Music Software),
Mark of the Unicorn, OpCode, etc. if they wanted this kind of
acquisition to their product line. But Microsoft is extremely unsuited
to supporting a professional line beyond their code OS/Compiler
stuff. What serious musician is going to trust Microsoft to provide
bug-free music software when they can't even get their wordprocessor
to work reliably?

They are, however, rapidly expanding into consumer products. The rapid
growth of the PC as a consumer product apparently caught them a little
offguard (not like the Internet/Netscape thing or anything like that,
just a bit), and they're spending money to remedy that
situation. That's what big, powerful companies do. And yes, mergers
and acquisitions do routinely crunch people and markets that get in
the way, everywhere in the business world.

>Microsoft just steals what it wants,

They buy it. This is, after all, a reasonable approximation of a free
market economy. Sure, Microsoft got where there are with some
questionable business practices, but there's certainly no theft in
the Blue Ribbon deal.

>Microsloth just wanted to kill B&P for the Amiga because it
>showed them up, and was small and cheap.

It didn't show them up -- they had no entry in the market, on any
platform. They still won't, that's not the kind of market Microsoft is
good at supporting. It was simply a cheap way for Microsoft to acquire
some innovative consumer-level music products for MS-Windows.

>Great, now we can get B&P for free -- did it ever occur to you that the
>reason they are giving it away is because they don't want to support
>it?

Of course they don't want to support it, this is obvious. Microsoft
has no interest in the Amiga market, no interest in the professional
music market. They want stuff for the masses to play around with, and
Blue Ribbon has some of the best of that stuff. And it's already
working under Windows.

>Now there will never be another upgrade, another bugfix, or even any
>simple support.  Yeah, Microsloth-- screw the Amiga users and get a
>few to even cheer your "Generosity".

Certainly it sucks, I'm not arguing that. Microsoft was fairly wise in
releasing B&P Pro, as-is. It probably saved them from a shit storm of
Amiga user complaints, B&P Pro being the only reasonable sequencer on
the Amiga (that I know about, anyhow). If they were really interested
in doing the Amiga community right, they would sell off the source
rights to someone in the Amiga community interested in continuing
support, as various other companies have done.

Dave Haynie          | ex-Commodore Engineering |   for DiskSalv 3 &
Sr. Systems Engineer |  Hardwired Media Company | "The Deathbed Vigil"
Scala Inc., US R&D   |    Ki No Kawa Aikido     |     [e-mail]

         "Feeling ... Pretty ... Psyched" -R.E.M.