News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
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Mail Starting 8/8/97 | |
Reading the sentence backwards helps a lot.
From: oliver@boinx.com (Oliver Breidenbach);
Sent at 8/8/97; 11:57:20 PM;
Don's puzzleI do not consider taking a war song as the theme song for Frontier a good idea. Taken out of its historical context people will misunderstand the reason for its lyrics, which are offensive against the Germans. To look for another theme song is not a question of political correctness, just a question of taste and respect to history.
From: jaggi@pingnet.ch (Christoph Jaggi);
Sent at 8/8/97; 7:34:40 PM;
Over there...Just imagine a German software company using a war song from the Nazi-era as theme song would do in harm... or a Vietnamese company a Vietnamese song from the Vietnam war-era...
Let the wars be over and with it the agressive lyrics of war-songs.
I enjoy DaveNet. Haven't owned a Mac for years, but I'm still a big fan of the machines. I'm really looking forward to Rhapsody. Anyway, quite often you point at NY Times articles. Only members can read the articles. Only American citizens can get a free membership to NY Times online. Those of us in Canada who subscribe to the paper have to pay again. We're asked to hand over credit card info, but we aren't told how much we'll be bilked. Talk about a bad UI.
From: luke@tymowski.org> (by way of Brent Simmons (Luke Tymowski);
Sent at 8/8/97; 10:58:58 AM;
NY Times articlesAnyway, can you put in a pointer saying only US citizens or people willing to pay should bother clicking? It's frustrating when you sit through a link and find you have to pay to read something at the other end.
Otherwise, good work. I visit every day, sometimes several times a day.
Yes, it is true that Apple is, first and foremost, a corporate entity with an obligation to make profits for its investors. But so are Power Computing, Motorola, UMAX, and so forth.
From: mmcavoy@ix.netcom.com (Michael McAvoy);
Sent at 8/8/97; 10:59:31 AM;
Naivete from Mr. CrabWhen Intel spends that kind of money advertising its wares, it does so with the intention of making even greater profits. Motorola and IBM are in a different situation; throwing advertising dollars at their chips is not going to have as significant an impact on the bottom line. As far as the clone makers, I just glanced at a Power Computing ad and, sure enough, the MacOS happy faces logo is prominently displayed. Repeatedly. There is no six-color bitten-off logo, but I assume they are not even allowed to use that one.
When Mr. Crab says it is only fair for the cloners to spend more money advertising the OS or the PowerPC processors, it is he who is being naive. These companies are not in business to save Apple. It is not certain that a collapse of Apple would lead to the end of Mac; valuable resources do not get thrown away during bankruptcy.
Perhaps it is fair to say that the clone makers are not paying enough for rights to the OS. I wouldn't know. But--whatever numbers are used--it is certain that Apple wastes a lot of money and effort due to mismanagement. Licensees should pay a fair price for the R&D that leads to their own profits... but they are perfectly right to howl about having to subsidize Apple's turns of ineptness.
And I'm sure it's true that the clone makers are currently competing more with Apple than with each other. That's the way enterprise works, Mr. Crab. If a large slow animal is surrounded by lean hungry ones, you know what's going to happen. When these companies are able to offer better hardware at lower prices, it is an unnatural situation for Apple to be protected from market shake-out. If Apple cannot compete in hardware, it should get out of hardware.
Ultimately, I do not see this as much a matter of who pays how much or who advertises what. The real issue underlying this is the same one we see at every turn... Apple cannot be relied upon to hold a course with any consistency.