NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/programmer/4308

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From: [e-mail] (Joanne Dow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Registrated developer, myth or reality?
Date: 27 Feb 1996 09:31:33 GMT
Organization: News Corporation
Message-ID: <4guj1l$[e-mail]>
References: <4f4qn6$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4fk3o7$[e-mail]> <4gem95$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4gmlmg$[e-mail]> <4gnvtf$[e-mail]>
 <4gqi0h$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Joanne Dow)
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In article <[e-mail]>,
   [e-mail] (Ronald van Eijck) wrote:
>In article <4gqi0h$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Joanne Dow) writes:
>>
>> Which costs you more, no information or BIX's $13/month plus $1/hour telnet
>> access with maybe 5-10 minutes per day connect time? If no information costs you
>> more you know what I am on about. (What you get for free is generally worth
>> precisely what you paid for it, too.)
>>
>> {^_^}     Joanne Dow, Amiga Exchange Editor on BIX, aka The Wizardess
>
>For europe you can add the cost for your local IP and phonecharges which
>is probably about the same or a little more then the costs for BIX. This
>means that support trough internet will cost us say US$ 20/Month and
>BIX would add another US$17. This is a price difference of about US$200
>a year. Not much for a company but very much for every private developer
>out there. Not to forget that the Internet account they have gives them
>a lot of other things they frequently use while the 200/year for BIX
>is just a channel to devsupport.

PHWEEP! 15 yard penalty for inaccurate commentary. You cannot access ADSP or any
OTHER Amiga support without that same internet account and with approximately
the same connect time. So adding in the Internet account fees is not an accurate
comparison. That aside BIX is moderately expensive at about $18/month with
average use and decent internet connections. For a bit over $200/year you guys
could have had access to all the material on BIX and been developing things. Or,
she wonders darkly, has this been a plot on the part of former developers to
keep the materials scarce to minimize competition from new developers? {^_-}/2
Mostly I just sit back here and shrug. These newbies *COULD* have had it all a
lot sooner had they pressured for it under existing situations. But the pressure
was applied on AT to go for a "unified approach." We all lose. I lose a small
income (harely a fraction minimum wage let alone my consulting rate for the
hours I put into it) and you guys lose access to the information SOME of you are
saying you need and others of whom I *know* already *HAVE* the information. Oh
well, I gain some free time to look at other things. Send me email when AT
finally makes up their mind what they are going to do. I wanna add up in my head
all the lost income for new developers that this stupid delay will have caused.

>I also doubt that developer support on BIX would be up and running
>as you say, even though the environment would work the developer
>material that Olaf and others are working on would be just as far
>as it is now, not done. Its not the medium that takes time, its the
>copyright issues, lots of tapes that have to be screened etc. etc. etc.
>AT also has the website running, mailing lists setup, ftp servers
>ready etc. but they don't open to the public until they have some
>stuff sorted out. Legal matters always take time.

Download file. Dearchive file into individual directory. Scan all text files for
"Commodore" and replace with "Amiga Technologies." Since SOME of the material is
being changed add the new date if the year has changed. Once all files are
scanned rearchive and upload. How long do you think this would take with
suitable AREXX macros. Gimme 4 man weeks and I'll have it done myself. Your
claim here is bogus.

>With the US$200 a year price increase you will loose most of the
>private developers which means less good shareware programs and
>less paying developers in the program. Since the price for a
>developer program for 1000 developers is not that much more then
>a program for 100 developers scaring of lots of them means that
>about the same money has to come from less people which increases
>the annual fee which decreases the number of developers etc. etc.

Well, we have lost it anyway, haven't we? SOME of them might have had the
money and nerve to go for it had it been there. What MIGHT we have had to
maintain the excitement we used to have?

>If AT wants lots of developers, both commercial and PD/Shareware
>authors, and I think they want that, they have to supply good
>support for a low price. We're not asking for free support, but
>we're not asking US 200 just for the carrier either.

OK - you want it free or next to free. WHO pays for the servers? Who pays for
the routine backups? Who pays for maintaining all the other little details? I
wonder if this is another stumbling block in the way of AT's generating the
support we ALL want.

>C'ya,
>
>--
>* Ronald van Eijck
>*
>* If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear
>* the result of a hundred battles. (Sun Tzu)

Prolly won't see me. I'm getting bored. As much as you guys want it *I* want to
see AT get off their duffs and get *SOMETHING* going. The stagnation we have now
is doing nobody any good other than existing developers with complete NDKs in
their possessions. And that only because it keeps the potential competition
down.

{^_^}     Joanne Dow, Amiga Exchange Editor on BIX, aka The Wizardess
          [e-mail], [e-mail]