🚀 go-pugleaf

>Why does it take SO LONG for Apple to distribute 
>System software.  It was released over 2 weeks ago (May 23rd)
>and I still haven't seen sight of it at any dealer or
>bulletin board.

How long does it take to duplicate a million floppy disks? And get them
verified, packaged up with documentation in boxes, shipped to distributors,a
nd re-shipped to computer stores?

This isn't a rhetorical question. Even assuming that they only duplicate
enough copies for 20% of the Mac's out there, that's still 200,000 sets.
Times 4 floppies.

You can't afford to have duplicating facilities that size sitting idle and
waiting for a release -- so you can't just plop in disks and finish the job
overnight. it takes time.

Even if they COULD do it overnight, it takes time to box them up, to get
them to the distributors, and for the distributors to unpack them, box them
up again, and ship them to retail outlets. 

>Question: Can the System sofware be posted to the
>net?  This would seem like a posting that would be
>useful to almost evryone.

No. I looked into this at one point. There are licensing restrictions
involved in getting permission to redistribute, and there's no way, because
of the way USENET is distributed, to be able to pass the software around and
protect Apple's interests in protecting the software. 

Technically, it's no problem. Legally, on both USENET's and Apple's side,
there are insurmountable problems. Logistically, it'd be hell.

If you're looking for a good, inexpensive place to get them, check out
Delphi. When they have permission from Apple, they make the stuff available
for download -- at about half the cost of CompuServe. 

If you're looking for REALLY cheap, track down a User Group.

As of now, though, none of the services have it avaialable -- Apple hasn't
yet released it to them for upload.



Chuq Von Rospach			chuq@sun.COM		Delphi: CHUQ

	Robert A. Heinlein: 1907-1988. He will never truly die as long as we
                           read his words and speak his name. Rest in Peace.