Re: [NTLK] might give up on newton- people... people...

From: Christopher Lee <clee_at_OISI.com>
Date: Thu May 15 2008 - 18:58:10 EDT

How about a bounty of sorts for software that is highly desired? Maybe a "pledge drive" for different applications that would reward someone financially for development above and beyond shareware fees...

I'd pledge $20 toward getting really good GUI-based package install and sync on Linux (specifically Ubuntu).

Chris Lee
Technical Project Manager

OIS
Main Phone - 916.646.2020
Fax - 916.646.0207
clee@oisi.com

www.oisi.com

We're all wired into a survival trip now... no more of the speed that fueled the 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling conciousness expansion, without ever giving a thought to the grim meathook realities that were lying in wait for all those peoples who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit. but their loss, and failure, is ours too. What Leary took down with him was that the central illusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the acid culture. The desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

-----Original Message-----
From: newtontalk-bounce@newtontalk.net [mailto:newtontalk-bounce@newtontalk.net] On Behalf Of Morgan Aldridge
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 3:49 PM
To: newtontalk@newtontalk.net
Subject: Re: [NTLK] might give up on newton- people... people...

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 6:18 PM, Andy Hill <adhill@fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I totally 100% agree, surely the point is to celebrate the Newton for
> what is it. A superb note, address, diary, email, safe storage,
> immediate on, long battery life, portable, intuitive, handwriting
> recognition, durable, simple, fun, device which has many hundreds if
> not thousands of active users and supporters and a small but seriously
> important number of active developers. Take for example as already
> mentioned: Blunt, Mailv, Adriano's hardware, Doug's recent Newtway,
> and the exquisite iNewton which I am about to purchase etc etc etc.
> Plus all the exceptional software like MoreInfo, Timetrax,
> Supernotepad that are as useful now as they ever were. Unna, Newtontalk and other sources are a gold mine really!

And I agree completely. I love using my Newton every day as is and there is an abundance of great software and hardware accessories that have already been developed.

> It would be a great shame if the archive became increasingly filled
> with threads about it's supposed demise and the search for holy grail of pdas.

My comments were not intended as cries of "the sky is falling" nor am I looking for a replacement for my Newton. However, my concern is that we have fewer and fewer (if any) _new_ developers coming on to the scene. Eckhart and Matthias have put great effort into building new development tools, but they are not yet ready for current developers, let alone new developers, to actively use them. Newton development has a considerable amount of black art involved when it comes to trying to do anything more than a straightforward NewtApp application.

We actually have a ton of documentation on the inner workings of the Newton and Newton OS thanks to those such as Paul Guyot, Filip Zawadiak, Eckhart Köppen, Simon Bell, Matthias Melcher, et al. I propose a push to improve the developer tools sooner rather than later so that we can get more people interested in developing for the Newton platform while we still have some of these brains amongst us to tap.
Even if all new developers intend to do is keep patching the open source software we have now, that's great. But, a few new useful and fun extra apps here and there wouldn't hurt. :)

BTW - I've got some UNNA changes in the works (although, admittedly, they've been delayed as of late) that I hope can help not only further preserve what we already have, but encourage new work.

Morgan Aldridge

---
morgant@makkintosshu.com
http://www.makkintosshu.com/
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Received on Thu May 15 19:01:34 2008

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