🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <19395@comton.airs.com>, Ian Lance Taylor <ian@airs.com> wrote:
>
>In certain cases Cygnus customers will get code which has not yet been
>in an official FSF release, merely because of the timing of the
>releases.  However, you specifically charge that Cygnus delays
>releases for the purposes of marketing, promotion, and money.  This
>has not happened in the time I have been at Cygnus (I was hired in mid
>1992).
>

first, it is good that you are so candid about the truth of what really
happens vs. what cygnus' marketing brochures say.  i have known this
already.  but that is a matter of false advertising.   i have others
already tell me that cygnus does not really release the cygnus' stable
releases to its own customers before non-customers have access to 
the same software.  in fact, a lot of times the opposite seems to be the
case, although the stability of such releases (net-alphas) could be argued.
but that's exactly one of the reasons i started this thread, if i didn't
people won't know that what cygnus' marketing literature says is refuted by
even their own people.

the point in this thread is not this, though.  the issue is the fact that
cygnus, for as long as it's been around, has consistently made the same
statement about how its own customers get "stable, maintained software"
quicker than other non-cygnus GNU users.  this is the point in this thread
that has been repeated over and over.

i believe cygnus does not need to market themselves to be provider of
timely releases of stable GNU software to their customers.  cygnus and 
people who work for cygnus consistently claim that they're selling support
and not the software.  if this is so, why claim otherwise in your own
literature?  saying that you need to buy cygnus services to get timely
releases of cygnus' released software -- properly maintained, engineered,
tested, etc. is directly against the claim of only selling support.
besides, cygnus would be better off not resorting to this type of practice.
i know, for example, they have LOST customers because of their silly 
marketing tactics.

the issue of "truth in advertising" is irrelevant, as far as i'm concerned,
but if you like to pursue it be my guest.  

>I believe that you are reading the Cygnus marketing literature, which
>says something like ``Cygnus releases are the same as those on the
>net'' and concluding that Cygnus releases have newer code which Cygnus
>is providing only to its customers.  The actual case is that Cygnus
>releases go through a long testing process which often puts them
>behind what is available on the net.  The software is, one hopes, more
>stable, but it is not newer.
>

so, why not fix your own litearture?  retrain your sales people to
not say this.  there even have been times when i (and i assume many others)
was bombarded by email from  cygnus' marketing people about how
it's crucial to buy cygnus' services to get the maintained GNU software.
this was after 1992.  i'm not sure if i saved the emails, but i'm sure
some of you out there remember this unpleasant experience.  i was on cygnus
customer mailing list for a few years until recently.  i asked to be taken
off the list.  cygnus used to send their newsletters, with a lot of the
same information.   and many of us still remember john gilmore's plea on
usenet about porting GCC to Solaris, asking for support ($1000?) from
compaines and individuals.  his message also contained the same mention of
the "if you pay, you get the software first, before others, who will get it
later."  it is a consistent marketing gimmick used by cygnus.  
that is the source of my objection.

>There is an exception when Cygnus is hired to do development work for
>specific companies.  In those cases, the work is, of course, provided
>to the companies as soon as it is finished, and it is not available on
>the net until the next release.  This is no different from any other
>contractor who works on GNU code.  In some cases a company will hire
>Cygnus to do specific work under a non-disclosure agreement.  In such
>cases the work will not be available on the net until the
>non-disclosure agreement terminates.  However, in such cases, the code
>is provided only to the specific customer who payed for it, not to all
>Cygnus customers.  This is, again, no different from any contractor
>who is willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

there are contractors of all types.  some have different
principles than others.  while most consultants and contractors and small
businesses will do almost anything for a buck, there are others who
carefully consider who they work for.  there are some of us who refused to
work for a number of companies that: 1) piss-test (e.g. northern telecom), 
2) defense contract (lockheed, boeing, etc.) , 3) guilty of rainforest 
destruction (e.g. mitsubishi), 4) anti-GNU (e.g. apple), 5) just plain too
greedy for their own good (e.g. microsoft),  etc.

if cygnus earns some of its money working under non-disclosure
agreement, that portion of cygnus' income is not derived from free software
support, because the software in question, at the time is not free.
i have no objection to this.  as long as cygnus does not claim otherwise.