🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4kmivn$b6b@post.tau.ac.il>, 
laden@orion.math.tau.ac.il (Guy Laden) writes:
> 
> I can understand why people would want better support for Oberon users
> from the ETH. However I simply dont understand why people aren't
> enthusiastic when they HAVE IT in the form of Oberon-Microsystems (OMI)
> and Oberon/F.
> This company is "for the market", and has made just the commitments we
> need.  [snip]
             
Guy: I agree with your enthusiasm about Oberon uSystems (maybe we should 
reserve OMI for M.Franz Oberon Module Interchange?) I want to direct 
your attention to another _commercial_ enterprise, namely Templ Software.
Templ Software (TS) are commercially supporting both V4 and System-3 
on a number of platforms. Initially I thought V4/System-3 support 
built into TS's Ofront was sort of a demo, but according to info I obtained
from TS it is not a demo at all, it is a full-blown Oberon System in both 
incarnations. Just think of this! Not only there is V4+System3 (= System5?),
not only it is available for a number of platforms, not only it supports 
Oberon-2 language (with which the original S3 has problems somehow),
but it is COMMERCIAL and thus truly end user-oriented. From my dealing 
with TS I know they are very friendly and responsive, even though 
I am not a paying customer at the moment. All in all, TS are pretty 
amazing company. I strongly suggest that you make a special section 
"Commercial Systems/Compilers" on your home page, in which full info about 
both OuS and TS will be easy to find. Quite naturally, this is not to mean
other companies should be in the second row. I only suggest that these 
two particular vendors deserve our attention because of the special variety 
of products they provide. 

I also think that TS approach of picking up a well-developed "product
line" from ETH is a very interesting one. Do not you think that every 
new product line needs quite a long warm-up time before it can become 
truly successful? One can even argue that new products and ideas come to 
fruition only when they are already obsolete. From this point of view 
a commercial line of Oberon Systems comes just in time, whereas Oberon/F
being a completely new product not long ago may be only at the beginning 
of its useful life cycle. All in all, I am myself very happy about 
Oberon Systems supported commercially by TS, ModulaWare, and hopefully 
by other vendors. 


> I think we are being respectfuly regarded as an audience enthusiastic for
> the ETH research.
> But we want more. We do not want to be told about ideas and given
> works-in-progress.
> We want software we can use (with our weird weird ATI video cards too!).
> We want stable, portable and elegant products with well proven designs,
> not experimental prototypes.
> We want a commitment to support. We want our wants/needs pandered to.
> In short, I believe we want to be _consumers_, not an _audience_.

You said it all. Once again: I have not dealt with OuS because I committed
myself to Oberon System at this moment, but I did have some contacts 
with Templ Software and I was truly amazed by their help and friendliness.
They were supportive in the best sense of the word.

> Do you realy want to unify System-3 and V4? What is the point?

Not necessarily. But I have some kind suggestion for the System-3 team.
Somehow, they created an impression of "haphazardness", as pointed out
by Doug. I can't see why it should be so. I can't see why they do not 
plan Oberon-2 support (maybe they do?). Small points. Easy to change. 

> V4 is stable, available on many platforms and includes full
> source code. 

I hope it _will_ include full source code for all platforms. 
Right now I am not (officially) aware of any Unix V4 released in source.
Maybe Univ. Linz Linux port will change this. 

> Meanwhile ETH research reaches me in books and publications:
> J.Gutknecht has recently published a new technical report to chew on
> and I'm waiting for the English version of N.Wirth's new book while
> trying to make time to read his last one.

Yes.... what about a book on System-3? Is it in the pipeline? 

Wojtek