🚀 go-pugleaf

I have a inquiry in with Microsoft on the following topic: do they 
intend for it to be used by people who want to sell or otherwise
distribute their program ?

Reason for question: (1) there are graphics font files. Microsoft is
now checking for me, but currently the word is that you may *not*
distribute them. So I can write a cute graphics program to amuse myself,
but I can't distribute it ??? Seems to me Borland got this one correct a
long time ago. Their manual clearly states that you can duplicate
.BGI files and the other stuff one reasonably might want to be able
to distribute with a program. I can't find mention of copyright issues
and fonts anywhere in the (rather disappointing and poorly done) MSC 6.0
documentation.

(2) there are still floating point patch files (the message for the one
patch I have reads like there are supposed to be two, but I sure can't
find another one in what the setup program installed. MSC 5.1 had two).
So I'm supposed to ship my program with something like a note saying:
"by the way, if this hangs your machine you need a new version of DOS ?"
People's reaction is much more likely to be, "no, I'll use another
program that doesn't put me through this hassle".
Get serious. Microsoft says I can ship the patch files. Sorry, that's a
rather technical hassle you're asking me to subject customers/users to.
If versions of DOS have problems with correctly handling interrupt 2
(or whatever), then I'd like the startup code to patch it for me on
the fly, or to rely on a more robust mechanism.

(3) see another message I sent concerning what seems to be a long-standing
problem with SIGFPE handling.
 
The current situation seems to be like selling a Porsche with 3 Michelin
tires and one tricycle wheel. The compiler, debugger, etc. look great.
It produces tight code, and the new optimizers look useful. But what
good is it if I can't produce a product, at least one that uses their
graphics and does floating point computation ? I find it hard to
believe that Microsoft could mess up so badly (Occam's razor says
it's more likely to be me), but that does seem to be the case.
 
I'd like to hear from those who agree, disagree, or have other data.
Is anyone shipping a program built using MSC 5.1 or 6.0, one that does
floating point computation ? What do you do about the patch situation ?
What do you do about SIGFPE and floating point errors ? What about the
rest of what's above ? Am I totally missing something ?

My solution: I look at Microsoft C 6.0 and drool, then I keep on using
Lattice C. While the code it produces is a bit bigger (my chief source
of frustration with Lattice), it is robust. It works on a wide variety
of machines. 

I raised all the above with Microsoft two years ago, with version 5.1,
except for the graphics fonts issue. Obviously nothing has happened to
resolve them (as far as I'm concerned). I do have a phone call in to
Microsoft, but I don't expect much action to result.

Since I read the news groups irregularly, please reply to
pjw@math2.sma.usna.navy.mil

Thanks !