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- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!rutgers!bagate!dsinc!satalink!bert.tyler
- From: bert.tyler@satalink.com (Bert Tyler)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
- Subject: Re: Bad news for POV and
- Message-ID: <15207.1088.uupcb@satalink.com>
- Date: 29 Jul 92 19:53:00 GMT
- Reply-To: bert.tyler@satalink.com (Bert Tyler)
- Organization: SataLink Info Systems - Huntingdon Valley, PA - 215-364-3324
- Lines: 72
-
- JM>In article <15108.1088.uupcb@satalink.com> bert.tyler@satalink.com (Bert Tyler) writes:
- >Compuserve accounts aren't that expensive, folks. Hopefully, they're
- >not as expensive as your reputation is. The POV crew is developing
- >an outstanding piece of software over there, and they would love
- >to have an OS/2 member on their team.
-
- JM>Then why did they turn down someone who can interact with them as easily
- JM>as anyone else? Surely he's aware of the email gateway from CI$ to the
- JM>Internet...
-
- Because someone who refuses to join them on Compuserve *can't* interact
- with them as easily as anyone else. Drew explained to me that he had
- explained this at length to the fellow who posted the original message,
- but the fellow apparantly wasn't interested in listening.
-
- Drew is fully aware of the CIS<->Internet email gateway, and uses it
- all of the time. The fact that an Internet person can send private
- email to and from Drew (at Drew's expense in both directions, BTW -
- the other fellow's main argument for not joining Compuserve was that
- he was a student and *his* Internet access is "free") is great - but
- that's not how the POV team works. They use a public forum, much
- like this one, to broadcast ideas, bug reports, and fixes to everyone
- on the development team on a regular basis. The point is that they
- use *that* forum rather than, say, this one, and have been using it
- for over a year - POV wasn't developed overnight, you know. Someone
- who refuses to join that forum puts an extra (and unnecessary) burden
- and expense on Drew and the POV team - in this case, directly on Drew.
-
- Think of it as someone who wants to join your volunteer organization,
- but announces in advance that he won't be going to any meetings - and
- expects that the group leader will of course write everything up and
- send him the minutes via private mail (on the group leader's dime).
- This is, of course, wll after the organization has been set up and
- a lot of sweat and blood spent getting it going. Then, when you tell
- him he can't join the group on those terms, he announces publicly
- that he's going to steal the conference table.
-
- The point is that the POV team set up some very simple requirements
- on distributing their code involving joining their development team,
- and someone had decided that he didn't like those requirements - and
- was going to ignore them and distribute their code anyway.
-
- (BTW, the original poster sent me a private message later stating that
- he would *not* be distributing an OS/2 binary in defiance of Drew's
- terms - but that he had received email from 20 other people who declared
- that they were going to do just that. I keep telling Drew that this is
- *not* a reflection on the quality of the folks who use OS/2, but
- items like this are making my arguments a little weak. It doesn't
- help any that, at least at the point I talked with him, no OS/2
- developers had offered to join the POV team on the terms that everyone
- *else* on the team joined in.)
-
- JM>When you're running a volunteer organization, you don't run off
- JM>volunteers and then complain that you can't get any.
-
- But Drew wasn't complaining. It was the *other* fellow who was
- complaining that he didn't like POV the copyright terms and intended
- to ignore them. I'm confident that Drew will find OS/2 developers
- who are willing to join his team on the terms that everyone *else* on
- his team has agreed to. Bear in mind that Drew's team has spent over
- a year developing this code already. They welcome newcomers, but
- prima-donna newcomers who aren't interested in following the rules
- everybody else follows aren't going to get a lot of deference.
-
- Hw *will* be writing a response to all this that he wants me to post,
- but he says he needs to calm down first. Today would not be a good
- day to attempt to convince Drew of the virtues of OS/2, I'm afraid.
-
- Bert Tyler (bert.tyler@satalink.com)
- ---
- . DeLuxe./386 1.25 #343sa . Your mileage may vary. Your car may not run.
-
-