From: Luiz Petroni (lpetroni_at_compassoarte.com.br)
Date: Thu Apr 22 2004 - 11:41:02 PDT
Nicolas and other from DCL team,
Is it possible at this time to turn the DCL project to a (as you named)
"closed/shareware" state?
If so, how much would a single licence cost so that the DCL team would
be able to support their programming efforts in order to publish a
fully functional dumb user version of the connection utilities (what I
mean here is something with the GUI and as easy to use as NCU)?
If this shareware fee is fair (i.e. can support your
programming/support efforts) and is set at reasonable range I belive
that there are a lot of MacOSX users (AMOF, I believe all of them) that
would pay for a software that would give them the same features,
reliability and easy of use as NCU.
I believe that the community see a really great effort being made from
the DCL team and also the great potential this connection libraries
have but, whenever I read a post from any of you trying to technnically
explain the process or how to use what is already functional I really
don't see how we can effectively help. It seems to be way ahead the
general Newton user. Maybe I'm wrong but this is how I feel.
Recently a lot of members helped another NTKLer (sorry I don't remember
his name) to get all the necessary stuff to continue to his
developments (newton, memory cards, keyboards,...) and if IIRC someone
sent a celular to Eckhard to help in his developments with Blunt. Maybe
some funds could be raised for the DCL project too. Maybe not a
donation but a shareware fee would be a good option because as you
said, if we pay for the DCL we will make your lives a complete misery
until we get the software does what we want it to do! ;)
-lpetroni
Nicolas Zinovieff wrote:
...
> Basically, from the start we asked ourselves the question: "Shall it be
> free?"
> - if the software is closed and shareware (let's say), then we have
> some money to fund the project, and people who paid for the software
> are the true target. I know that if I pay for a program that doesn't
> work, I'll just make the developer's life a complete misery until the
> software does what I want it to do.
> - If the software is free and opensource, then we work on our own time
> to improve stuff... But the good part is that it's available to anyone,
> and everyone will hop onboard to provide help or information.
>
> Well, we chose the second alternative and didn't get what we hoped for.
> Are we ranting? not really, but since we are the only users who
> actually take the time to report bugs and squash them, to ask for
> features and use them, and to give time to the project and use its
> results, we really feel we are only answerable to ourselves...
>
> I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that we are in the
> process of releasing a new stable version of everything (see "Towards
> DCL 1.1"), and to give you a couple of URLs:
> - http://bugs.kallisys.com/ is the bug reporting engine we would like
> everyone to use so that we can keep a written report somewhere of the
> progress
> - http://www.kallisys.com/files/newton/DCL/nightlies/ is where we put
> every successful build (and logs of every build) based on the CVS
> version.
>
> And of course, thanks to everyone who gives us a hand, however little
> help it is to make things goes _forward_. We work for you guys.
>
>> Anyhow, it's always one of the conflicts of software development as
>> to
>> whether the rough product (which is usually adequate for the
>> developers) is worth turning into something user friendly enough for
>> us
>> dumb end users...
>
> There is no such thing as a dumb end user. There is the end user and
> the casual user.
> The casual user will glance, and give up. The end user will rant about
> the somewhat limited capabilities (after thourough testing of course),
> offer to translate or correct the translations, give a hand on graphics
> or coding, or just send a 'thanks' note. That's what "opensource" and
> "collective work" are all about.
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