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From: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Subject: Re: SCO market share
Message-ID: <CIEE7p.5Cp@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Reply-To: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle)
Organization: CEBAF
References: <9312210922.aa08149@fags.stonewall.demon.co.uk> <1993Dec15.015758.17502@news.csuohio.edu> <9312160932.aa05151@fags.stonewall.demon.co.uk> <1993Dec16.141138.17060@news.csuohio.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 18:33:25 GMT
Lines: 27
In article <9312210922.aa08149@fags.stonewall.demon.co.uk>,
nigel@stonewall.demon.co.uk (Nigel Whitfield) writes:
>
> Now, actually finding a fix isn't necessarily what you need from
> support. What's far better is to have an indication of whether or not
> it will be fixed in a certain time frame. If you know that it's not
> going to be, then you can make alternative arrangements. In an extreme
> case, that could (and has, in the past) mean changing hardware and/or
> OS. As long as the data can be moved easily...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ahh! There's the rub! My biggest headaches with commercial software
over the years (and the primary reason I am typing this on a Linux box
with *no* commercial software on it) have been about proprietary data
formats. Market forces pressure commercial software outfits to make
proprietary data formats, or at least undocumented incompatibilities
to standard data formats, so make this transition as hard as possible.
On the other hand, most "free" (emphasis on freedom) software has straight,
legible, ascii for its data files, which you can now use high-tech
data compression on to keep its size managable. I like my data on-line,
freely transportable, cross-usable, awk-processable, etc. etc. .
Look at the data files for xfig if you want an example.
I just don't get that from commercial software.
Has anybody thought about moving this thread someplace else?
- Larry Doolittle doolittle@cebaf.gov