Re: "...XyWrite to its knees"

[Peter Evans peterev@xxxxxxxx]

Carl Distefano points out that, on top of the massive intellectual [?]
demands of any effort to work on XY code:

>Somebody (or entity) would have to license it from TTG first.
>Any rich people (or entities) on the list? (Just asking.)

It seems so. After all, it's not long since a message was posted here that
started:

>Carter Campbell asked for comments:
>> Some time ago, a fellow mailed me about a similar subject (this was back in
>> the depths of time and I have lost the email message) suggesting that some
>> of the list members get togther and purchase the rights to XyIII+ ...
>
>I "buy" this idea. Count me in for up to $1,000. Even though I probably
>wouldn't use it until it incorporated some Xy4 refinements. . . .

Nobody else concurred, and I for one blanched somewhat at the ideas of
offering $1,000 for Xy4 and also of paying anything for Xy 3.5: a program
that (excellent though it is) I no longer use and do not intend ever to use.

The conversation moved to and fro, and Kenneth Frank pressed the pause
button by politely but firmly saying no to the idea of giving the code
away. However, I don't think he commented on the related but different
notion of selling the rights to it.

How about Nota Bene? I haven't looked at it for at least five years; when
I did, I got the impression that it was a moderately tweaked XyWrite with
different menu and help systems and an utterly inscrutable keyboard file.
What happens if one runs Nota Bene and loads a Xy keyboard file--does one
get a strange-*looking* but debugged Xy 3.6?

Anyway, my brief visit to the Nota Bene website gave me the impression that
the people who own the rights to it are interested in developing and
selling software. (Mysteries remained: I couldn't decide whether NB for
Win existed--it seemed to, but there was no price.) Perhaps we should give
up on TTG and instead petition NB for good software.

[I'd very much welcome a spirited retort from Kenneth Frank, telling me how
Smart Words has been debugged and how it can for example place footnotes as
accurately as can Xy 3.56.]