Re: A Win95 question

[Peter Evans peterev@xxxxxxxx]

James McSwain has a dismal view of software development/retrogression.

>the computer magazines . . . [suggest] that you must
>have the latest wrinkle or else...

With minor exceptions, yes. But they always have. Name the period that
for you represents the peak of good software/hardware design, blow the dust
off any magazine published then that had many ads, and I'm willing to bet
Monopoly money that the new stuff was being puffed over the old using
rhetoric similar to that of 1997. Magazines that depend on ads try to
generate enthusiasm for spending. (So what else is new?)

>we seem to be driven to exchange perfectly good and useble equipment and
>software for bug-ridden, expensive, sometimes pointless gimmicks that
>amount to software entertainment

Oh? I don't regard myself as gung-ho about the latest goodies; if I were,
I wouldn't now be putting the final touches to a system whose every card is
"legacy" (silly term). Yes, the old equipment--or most of it--is indeed
perfectly good and usable. The newer equipment is rather better, a lot
faster, and easier to set up and use (though I do have doubts about the
latest generations of modems). It's also cheaper now than the old stuff
was then. I look at computer ads and I don't see much gimmickry.
Opportunistic copywriting and the premise (hardly unique to computers or to
1997) that a bigger, faster, whatever will make you feel or look good, yes:
this is a matter of advertising/marketing and applies to everything from
detergent to automobiles. But gratuitous gimmickry of the product itself?
Like what? And where's the "software entertainment" even in the epitome of
the Gates vision, *Office 97*? One little dolphin.

>I propose that Congress mandate that all DOS based software become
>part of the public domain unless companies provide some service for
>it, or surrender it to a public non-profit corp. that could
>continue its useful life.

I'm not American, but I don't imagine that the legislature of that
inscrutable and prototypically capitalist nation rushes to put private
intellectual property in the public domain (rather the reverse, according
to Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg). Now, if you raised the cash to buy
votes (cf the NRA), or thought up some reasoning whereby such a move would,
let's say, precipitate the fall of godless communism in Cuba, you'd have a
better chance of success. Anyway, better come up with some snappy,
red-blooded bumper stickers to drum up support. (How about naming the
campaign "Forever Amber"?) If you go the vote-buying way, I'll donate a
sawbuck.
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Peter Evans