DAVENET RESPONSE
DAVENET RESPONSE
Sent: 6/14/96; 10:25:35 AM
From: jacobsen@george.arc.nasa.gov (Christian Jacobsen)
Hi Chris, I saw your reply to Dave Winer's DaveNet piece about Free Speech and Software, and I wanted to debate a point or two that you made.
You said:
"In the platform parallel, while the platform vendor ought not squelch free expression ...and is free to use its own expression, a platform vendor cannot assure the success of any idea in any market.
I'm afraid, Dave, than when you claim that you are "often penalized economically for implementing [your] view of the future in software", you imply that it's the platform, or the platform vendor, that's doing the penalizing."
The platform vendor (Apple) IS doing the penalizing. Dave (and UserLand) have spent years developing and educating the market. Millions of man-hours have gone into educating people about Frontier, Mac scripting, and honing Frontier into the incredible product it is today. Frontier has evolved into a product with tremendous depth, consistency, and a useful feature set with an extensible design.
Because of this lead, Apple cannot compete with UserLand on any level except marketing. Frontier has aged into a fine piece of software. Apple has nothing to gain be entering this market, and everything to lose.
You and I and Dave all know that a certain (large) number of people will buy a product simply because it has the Apple logo on it. Apple's product entry into this market will not be as complete or as mature as Frontier, and therefore the user that buys the Apple product because of the Apple logo, will not have as good an experience as they would have with Frontier.
Now, I understand that Apple might have legitimate gripes about Frontier, but instead of trying to work with Dave on fixing these "problems" or working together to find a good "middle-ground" Apple instead decides to confuse the market and enter their own product...when all they really need to do is sit down with Dave and have a discussion.
I am sure that if Apple came to Dave and said "This is our list of gripes about your product" that Dave would be willing to work with Apple to come up with mutually agreeable solutions to each issue. (Especially if the alternative was to try and fight Apple for the market!) Maybe Dave would need a cash infusion of $100k to get a new manual written, and get some features modified to suit Apple's requests. That is a lot smaller cost to Apple than developing a brand-new app, and then revving it for years before it reached the maturity level of Frontier (thereby killing Frontier).
"If the platform is speaking its own ideas louder than yours, then the platform runs the risk of alienating you, other developers, and the portion of the market that prefers your expression."
Yes, but the issue is bigger. The Apple market needs to gain cohesion...what it does not need is Apple coming into a market and putting across the impression that it is saying, "Gee, all the products currently offered in this market suck, so we have developed our own to try and remedy this terrible blight. Buy it. It has a little multi-colored Apple on it, so it is better than all those other apps by companies you have never heard of."
"But if you've just found the natural market for your products, then I don't see how you're being "penalized" by anybody other than the people who have failed to use your software."
Why does Dave's market have to be limited to the people who have happened into the church on the right Sunday and heard the gospel of Frontier? If UserLand had a billion dollars, and 56 million users, would Apple get into the market then? No. That would be stupid. So why should UserLand continue to develop for the Mac if Apple gets into the game? It is the same question! (So yes, Apple is penalizing Dave if ti enters the market.)
"But you and others have very compellingly claimed that we brought much of our low share on ourselves, and ought to either change our ways or accept our lot, rather than try to blame the Wintel world or -- even worse -- blame the customers who found something they liked better for their own reasons."
Why do people still buy Wintel machines? Because they don't know any better. That is a failing of Apple's marketing department, pure and simple. It seems we are in agreement here. As has been proven time and time again, Apple is the superior platform. Beta was the superior platform over VHS, but Sony flooded the market with VHS tapes and killed Beta. Why does Apple have to be Sony? Why does Apple want to flood the market with an inferior product...especially after Apple's dismal history in the applications market? Why not let someone else who has already taken the initial risk reap the rewards? Why doesn't Apple give UserLand a cash infusion to help UserLand along? Or a co-marketing opportunity? Or bundle Frontier with PowerMacs? It would be cheaper than developing a competing product, and it would give other developers incentive to develop for the Mac.
One other note on the subject of the scripting market: There has never been a really compelling reason for a lot of people to learn scripting for the Mac. But now, with the Internet and the Web, there is a compelling reason for a large portion of the Mac market to learn some kind of scripting. Frontier is faster than AppleScript. Frontier has a debugger. Frontier has a much more robust feature set (look at the included verbs!). Frontier is fully compatible with AppleScript, and if you run your AppleScripts from within the Frontier environment they can run multi-threaded!!! Apple's current scripting environment is inferior in every way to Frontier, so why doesn't Apple embrace UserLand, and thank Dave for doing all the hard stuff? After all, the Frontier user base is growing by huge leaps and bounds now that there is a compelling reason for Joe Macuser to learn how to write scripts for his Mac! So the market IS responding to Frontier, contrary to your implication above. The Frontier market is growing rapidly now that scripting has become important to Everyman.
In short: Yes, Apple is penalizing Dave for developing for the Mac. If Apple's product does better and kills Frontier, why would Dave develop any other product (or market, for that matter) for Apple? What is his incentive if Apple is just going to reap the rewards of his hard work?
Dave is an honest guy with an excellent product who should be rewarded by Apple and lauded as a hero for going through the excruciating pain of developing a market...instead his hard work and effort is rewarded by Apple stomping in and taking over after all the real work has been done.
I recently purchased MetroWerks CodeWarrior, and I am learning to develop software in C++ and Java. If I design a commercially viable product I may release it for the Mac as a Shareware product, but I will NEVER try to enter the Mac market as a commercial developer. That is suicide. I will write commercial software for the BeBox, but not for the Mac, even though I prefer the Mac. Apple has made Macintosh software development a hostile environment.
And finally, I must apologize for being so vehement in my defense of Dave and Frontier. When I worked at Apple I always saw you, Chris, as the quintessential Good Apple Guy. Any time I saw reason and good judgement at Apple in those dark days of 1991-1992, it always seemed that you were behind it. I hate to see you be so wrong on this issue. It really just crushes this whole "Chris Espinosa as MacJesus" image I had built up in my head (and heart).
Thanks for listening, - Christian Jacobsen
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-- Christian Jacobsen -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Multimedia Developer -- -- NASA/Ames Research Center -- -- jacobsen@george.arc.nasa.gov -- --------------------------------
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