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  • To: Matt Holdrege <matt@ascend.com>
    • 

  • Subject: Re: (ASCEND) In Defense Of Ascend...
    • 

  • From: Robert Fournerat <robert@netin.com>
    • 

  • Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 18:20:04 -0600
    • 

  • Organization: http://www.netin.com
    • 

  • References: <3.0.5.32.19980322183253.00b5cda0@darla.ascend.com> <Chameleon.890619905.altera@blabgoo> <3.0.5.32.19980320153607.00a3d7e0@spanky.ascend.com> <882565CD.007DCC05.00@smtp-mta.ascend.com> <Pine.SOL.3.96.980320172326.14911E-100000@vellocet.insync.n et> <3.0.5.32.19980320153607.00a3d7e0@spanky.ascend.com> <3.0.5.32.19980320162613.00953100@darla.ascend.com> <3.0.5.32.19980322164427.00b46ea0@darla.ascend.com> <3.0.5.32.19980323063734.00b1bc30@darla.ascend.com> <3.0.5.32.19980323130053.00b6dc50@darla.ascend.com>
    • 



Matt Holdrege wrote:
> 
> Folks really need to read things that are posted here completely before
> responding. I think most readers have the picture now, but some are still
> not clear on the concept.
> 
> At 12:44 PM 3/23/98 -0600, Robert Fournerat wrote:
> >I would have liked to respond to sooo many things in this thread,
> >but I simply don't have the time.  So please excuse me if I sound
> >terse, but here are a couple of quick items that I think need to
> >be mentioned, and I don't have the time to fully discuss them.
> >
> >1) Matt Holdrege, you're wrong in your opinion of the difficulty
> >   of supporting an application level product across multiple UNIX
> >   platforms.  There are many, many resources from which Ascend
> >   could draw examples of how to implement portable software.  You
> >   might start by studying the emacs or perl distributions.
> 
> Again, this has little to do with compilation or portable software.

My apologies for being confusing, Matt.  By "supporting", I meant
that at the time a program was designed and implemented, care
was given to write software that could be compiled on different
operating systems with little or no changes to the code and 
little or no difference in runtime behavior.  We call this 
characteristic portability.

Matt, I agree that my reading and writing skills could improve,
but when you say things like:

On Fri, 20 Mar 1998 16:26:13 -0800, Matt Holdrege <matt@ascend.com>
wrote:
> Not to mention Linux! There are too many Unix's for most commercial vendors
> to support. Especially those vendors who don't focus on server software. If
> we were giving away source code it would be no problem. But we spent a lot
> of valuable engineering time developing this code and we aren't going to
> give it away. And since engineering time is so valuable, we simply can't
> support every unix out there.
> 

I think we're talking about developing software - since you use
phrases like "developing this code" and "source code".

Anyway, in reply to your posting,

At 03:28 PM 3/21/98 +1100, Damien Miller wrote:
>Rubbish, supporting the different flavours of BSD would probably take
>little more than a recompile. Ditto Linux (which is especially easy to
>port to/from).
>
>If the code was written to be portable (which isn't _that_ hard under
>Unix), then this wouldn't be an issue. But then again this is the same
>company which brought us the Java configurator which only runs on Windows.

Which would be true if Ascend knew how to design and implement
software.

To which you replied:
Sat, 21 Mar 1998 07:35:17 -0800, Matt Holdrege <matt@ascend.com> wrote:
> It's not just compiling. One of the key features of our commercial products
> is that they are supported! To support 18 flavors of unix we would have to
> train each tech support person on the various differences in such unixes.
> With OS's like Linux which are generally highly customized, it would be a
> royal pain to try and debug someone elses system.

I know I keep saying this over and over, but let me try to make
this clear to you one more time.  If Ascend would design and 
develop quality portable software, Ascend would not have implementation
differences on the supported platforms.  You would not (for the 
most part) need to train anyone about specific OS implementations
on which your product runs.  Therefore, Ascend could "support" (any
way you want to interpret the word) a product, not a specific platform.

> 
> >2) I have to admit that I dont understand how Ascend could argue
> >   that the masses have spoken.  The majority of us use UNIX.
> >   Why do you fight so hard to not support us?  BTW, my ISP also
> >   uses Linux - exclusively.  I'm not opposed to other forms of
> >   UNIX.   Right now, Linux is simply the best choice.
> 
> We do support unix.

Yes, yes, I believe you have stated that Ascend has products
for Solaris (I don't remember which flavor, but I don't think
it was all of them), HPUX, and NT.  But you do not support UNIX 
generically.  Maybe the paragraph above make more sense to you now.

> Also note that Ascend doesn't sit up on an ivory tower and conduct market
> survey's. We speak directly to our customers and they (believe me!) speak
> directly to us. This is how we chose to support the various unix systems
> that the above products run on today.

As many people have already said, it does not appear so.


Robert

Oh, one last thing Matt - I think it tends to piss off a
customer when a vendor tells him that he doesn't know how
to read.  As for me personally, I also teach graduate school
(and have all the credentials to do so), so I bet I read and 
write as well as most people...





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