Richmond, rudeness and commercial enterprise

[J. Landman Gay]

On 8/18/03 9:44 AM, Mathewson wrote:

> 1.  If RR is a commercial enterprise then it might like to
> consider rewarding developer contribs: the idea of FREE or
> not FREE can work in both directions.

You will excuse my bluntness, but I am responding to the tone of your 
first message. While your contributions have been prolific and likely 
useful to some beginners, they are somewhat trivial. That is not to 
belittle your attempts, but merely to point out that perhaps your 
contributions do not entirely pay for a perpetual free version of 
Revolution.

> There has certainly been the impression of a 'community' -
> now one of the shortcomings of RR is the lack of an
> adequate manual that will serve the needs of new
> programmers - the use-lists, to a certain extent, serve
> that purpose.  However
> if users are writing the manual (so to speak) should they
> not have some benefit from it?

Revolution contains some of the best documentation in the business. I 
would hardly say that the users here are writing the docs, particularly 
after seeing up close and personal how much work Jeanne has put into 
them. What I do see more often than not on this list are people pointing 
out to others *where* in the docs to find the information they need.

The docs are constantly being reorganized and improved, but the content 
is consistently exemplary. I have seen very few instances where what is 
asked here is not available already to anyone who choses to use the 
search plug-in to find it.

> The concept of a community where people give freely of
> their time and effort to contribute to building something
> (in this case a knowledge base) seems directly the opposite
> of a
> commercial enterprise.

The crucial point you sail right over, of course, is that Runtime *is* a 
commercial enterprise. This is the crux of the matter for me, as a 
professional developer. I have seen other x-talk tools disappear or 
dwindle to obscurity. I have placed my company's future squarely in the 
hands of Runtime and if they do not succeed then neither do I.

I applaud any steps the company may take to plug the leaks in their 
financial future. You are bitter because someone took away your free 
toy. I say tough. I have paid for my copies of MetaCard in the past, and 
now I pay for my copies of Revolution. Runtime's current discount prices 
are so beyond reasonable that I worry about their viability.

I want this company to succeed. I want x-talk to be around forever. The 
30-day trial is a good way for newcomers to test the software to see if 
it meets their needs. The intent of the original starter kit was the 
same; it was intended as a trial version. The fact that some people 
abused it and never did buy the software was intentionally overlooked 
for a while. You can't very well complain that a company who needs to 
make a profit to survive is now taking notice of these abuses.

> However, the removal of the 'free' version of RR does away
> with this image and leave us with raw commercialism.  So
> henceforward words like "RR developer community" will sound
> a bit hollow.

I assure you that those of us who own legitimate, paid licenses still 
feel very much part of this community. I hate to break it to you, but 
"raw commercialism" is what is going to keep this tool in the hands of 
users world-wide. Runtime isn't a large enough enterprise yet to be able 
to sustain any amount of monetary leakage. It is naive to expect that a 
commercial company will continue to hand you free software forever. I 
say this with authority as a professional developer who runs a company 
based on "raw commercialism." We have expenses, we have bills. If we 
don't pay our expenses, we lose our business. If that should ever happen 
to Runtime, you'd lose your free software anyway -- and what is worse, 
the rest of us who did pay for it would also be left with nothing.

Frankly, I can't understand your attitude. You should be grateful for 
the free ride you've had so far.

> The reason why I feel f***ed off is because I will no
> longer be able to contribute very successfully to the
> use-list or the developer contribs page being unable to
> have proper access to future RR builds.

My heart bleeds for you. The rest of us have paid. When you get a job, 
you can buy software too. Meanwhile, use the starter kit you already 
have and stop looking your gift horse in the mouth.

You aren't the only one who feels like using unprintable words here.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com