🚀 go-pugleaf

I apologize to the rest of the net for the essentially personal open 
letter nature of this posting, and in my defense can only say that I was 
responding to that kind of posting.

Dear Jordan,
It is unfortunate that you thought that I was spewing venom at you.  I 
appreciate your politeness in telling me so, and I will try to return the 
compliment.  I was not attempting to spew venom, and I stated that fact not 
once, but twice.  I am of the personal opinion that Apple has done most of 
the Good Things in the computer industry and also that without excption 
everyone who has contributed to this network is part of that.  In 
particular, I think that awareness of some people's special needs to serve 
a very small minority of people is excellent and should be commended.

Of course, there is a problem in that there is a natural human tendency to 
speak only when something goes wrong, and there is an equally natural 
human tendency to remember criticism more intensely than praise.  You 
yourself might, even now, be hard pressed to remember the dozens of times 
I have praised Apple for something.  Add to that the fact that my style 
does rankle some people, although I try to express general frustrations in 
large and ridiculous metaphors, and I try to state at the beginning and 
the end that no flame is intended.  So, I understand how you may have 
taken offense and may have been frustrated.  Please reread my posting and 
try to understand why I am frustrated.  There is valid criticism hidden in 
there somewhere.  You say my words are powerful.  Please grant my 
explanations that I am not trying to flame anybody the same power as the 
rest.

Also, please give some thought to another frustration of mine.  Apple is a 
fairly big company.  Left hands don't neccesarily know what right hands 
are doing, nor should they.  I think that most of the people who watch 
this net understand that.  However, sometimes criticism of some of the 
things that are done or not done gets lively.  No, I don't see Apple day 
by day, and sometimes, therefore, I don't know the source of the problem 
to criticise.  I generally assume that such sources are hard to track down 
but that the first step in doing so is recognizing that there is a 
problem.  Often, when there is some serious criticism of Apple, whether 
expressed harshly or not, there is one person who works at Apple and, in 
spite of disclaimers, takes it to heart, takes it personally.  This most 
recently happened with the bit about the Microsoft suit.  I can understand 
how this happens, but please try to understand the effects.  It tends to 
belie the disclaimers and tends to turn this newsgroup into something like 
AppleLink, with the world divided into Apple people and non-Apple people.  
This would be a bad thing, because one of the great strengths of this 
group is that it is informal, that Apple employees do not post _qua_ Apple 
employees.  As happened with the Microsoft suit, the us-vs.-them, take it 
all to heart stuff tended to obscure the real message, that of what us 
ordinary po' folk thought about it.

The other disadvantage is the fact that somebody is bound to take offense 
at a remark tends to increase the frustration threshold for posting.  
Also, it works.  I received an Email to the effect that my posting had 
been brought to the attention of developers.  This is, by far, the most 
fantastically fast response I have ever gotten to anything I have ever 
brought up, here, through a mediary on AppleLink, or elsewhere!  And I 
thought I was just blowing off steam!

You're right.  I don't see Apple day to day.  On the other hand, you may 
not see the end users that I see day to day.  You may not see the teachers 
who have fought loyally for Macintoshes for half a decade and are scared 
that their software will break if they upgrade and only see phrases like 
"not supported" and "we are committed to providing."  You may not see the 
leader of a major GUI project who says that Apple has become just as bad 
as [another company, whose three initials spell out a scatological 
comment].  You may not see the worries about the management shakeup, 
especially in light of many recent statements to the effect that there is 
no reason to assume that Gasse would resign, a couple of weeks before he 
did.  Hey, I don't see them day to day either, but I do see them 
sometimes, and I listen.  Sometimes I try to assuage their fears, for the 
sole reason that I think that Macintoshes are still insanely great.

I have one final though for you.  IMHO, people tend to criticize in an 
escalating scale, like this:
1) Criticize politely
2) Criticize nastily
3) Criticize coldly and without emotion, using their wallets

Jordan, if you would like to discuss this further, I can be reached by Email.
Honest, I don't think that either you personally or Apple in general is the
Great Satan.  Now that the surface tension is broken, I can be more courteous.

for (;;)
{
    printf("Possible inferences notwithstanding, nothing\n");
    printf("in this posting is intended to offend.\n");
}


Eric Pepke                                    INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET:   pepke@fsu
Florida State University                      SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                    BITNET:   pepke@fsu

Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.