🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6635@internal.Apple.COM> rickf@Apple.COM (Rick Fleischman) writes:

> Phil and Dave's Excellent CD is restricted to Apple Partners and Associates
> due to the very preliminary nature of some of the materials contained on the
> CD-ROM.  We want to be assured that those who receive these pre-pre-release
> code samples and tools have access to Apple Developer Technical Support.
> Please be assured that all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's
> Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general distribution
> do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested.  Many items on Phil
> and Dave's Excellent CD are already sold through APDA, including Macintosh
> and Apple II sample code, system software, and the technical notes HyperCard
> stack.  Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including
> SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be available
> through APDA as soon as we can "productize" them.
> 
> We appreciate your interest in these products.  Our goal at APDA is still
> to give Apple's development products the widest possible distribution.
> When the tools on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are ready for such
> distribution, they will be made available as soon as possible through APDA.

I appreciate your clarification of Apple's position here, Rick.  I
do have several further questions which your posting does not answer,
though, and I hope you can provide some additional answers and rationales
for all of us slavering tool-junkies out here in NetLand:

1) You say that "some" of the materials are of a "very preliminary
   nature", and that you wish to be assured that everyone who gets their
   hands on these have access to DTS.
   
   Question: What fundamental difference is there between these
   utilities, and the "Class 3" software which APDA has been offering
   for sale for several years?  To quote from the APDA manual:
   "developed... for prototyping interesting development environments
   or for quickly solving specific problems.  Others were actually
   final products at one time but have not been revised or updated, nor
   are they expected to be upgraded...  may not work perfectly with
   newer system software releases or computer models.  Apple Computer
   does not recommend that you use Class 3 products for developing
   commercial software; they are intended for your personal enjoyment
   only."
   
   Suggestion: If APDA is already offering this sort of software,
   _explicitly_ with no support from APDA or DTS, then there would seem
   to be no fundamental barrier to offering Phil&Dave's CD through
   APDA, and advising its buyers that some portions are of "Class 3"
   quality.  It's really no different from what you are already
   doing.

2) You say that "all the tools and references on Phil and Dave's
   Excellent CD that are considered robust enough for general
   distribution do go through APDA as soon as they have been tested."
   
   Observation: Sometimes this testing cycle seems to take an uncomfortably
   long time.  For example, it took about six months for the draft
   documentation on 32-bit Color QuickDraw (released at the developer's
   conference) to become available through APDA (Fall '89 catalog).

   Comment: As an independent software developer, I would _much_ rather
   have quick access to draft documentation than be forced to wait many
   months for a polished version.
      
2) You write that "Many items on Phil and Dave's Excellent CD are
   already sold through APDA, including Macintosh and Apple II sample
   code, system software, and the technical notes HyperCard stack."
   
   Indeed.  However, none of these things are currently available on
   CD-ROM. Currently, it's necessary to buy these things individually...
   usually on disk, with hardcopies attached... or download them from an
   online service and store them on floppies.  This is an expensive
   process... the going APDA price for a single disk-and-documentation
   package seems to run $20-$25.   It's easy to be twenty-dollared-to-
   death this way.
   
   I would _really_ like to see an APDA-supplied CD-ROM which contains
   the bulk of this sort of stuff... SpInside Mac, the Tech Notes and
   Q&A stacks, the System software, and so forth.  This sort of CD-ROM
   would be much easier to handle than a collection of 20, 30, or 40
   floppies... and the materials cost alone would be less than the
   cost of the corresponding number of floppies.  Bulk DSDD floppies
   of good heritage (Sony, for example) seem to be available for
   about $.50 in large quantities... and the incremental cost-of-pressing
   of a CD-ROM is down below $2.50.  The incremental cost of pressing
   CD-ROMs containing 100 megabytes of tools/software/documentation is
   FAR below the cost of distributing the same information on floppies
   or on paper.
   
   If APDA were to pass the reduced production cost on to its users (a
   heretical thought, perhaps?), it could significantly decrease the
   cost of achieving your stated goal of "the widest possible
   distribution."

3) You say "Other features of Phil and Dave's Excellent CD, including
   SpInside Mac and international versions of HyperCard, will be
   available through APDA as soon as we can 'productize' them."
   
   See [1] and [2] above... for how long must we wait?  and will we be
   able to get these products as part of a reasonably-priced CD-ROM?
 
As you can probably infer, I'm not really happy with the current state
of affairs.  Your posting is the first definitive public statement I've
seen from anyone at APDA about this issue in the eight months or so
I've been trying to buy this CD-ROM through APDA.  I thank you for
posting, and making your corporate position clear... but I disagree
with APDA's position.
       
Apple (DTS, in particular) has made statements endorsing the CD-ROM as
a software distribution medium.  I'd really like to see some consistent
actions from APDA.  I would *love* like to see APDA sell Phil&Dave's
Excellent CD;  I'd be satisfied to see APDA sell an "APDA's Very Own
Tested and Sanitized CD-ROM of Useful System Software, Documentation,
and Tools."  As long the cost is reasonable (i.e. related directly to
the cost of producing the CD-ROM... NOT based on the sum of the costs
of the diskette distributions!) these two approaches would both be of
real benefit to Mac software authors.  I feel very strongly that APDA
should do one or the other.

Phil Ostron assured me that APDA listens to the voices of its
customers, on the Net and otherwise.  I'm not from Missouri, but I'll
say it anyway:  "Show me!"

Respectfully yours...

-- 
Dave Platt                                             VOICE: (415) 493-8805
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