[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Expire Demo



Dear Folks,

Unfortunately, we can't put a time-limited-only version of Executor  
out on the archives.  Our reasoning will make sense to some of you,  
but will seem awfully strange to others, but it's true.

The problem is that ARDI's purpose is to do Mac compatibility in  
general, including both emulators for machines with their own  
operating systems (NeXTs, Suns, IBM-PCs and clones) and ROMs for Mac  
clones.  If you're familiar with the Mac clone market and the Mac  
emulator market, you're aware that the existing "clones" and  
"emulators" require Mac ROMs to work.  There's the rub; if we release  
a time-limited-only version of Executor, then people could make  
emulators that require our time-limited-only version of Executor  
instead of Mac ROMs.

This may not seem very probable to you, but we're talking about a  
potentially *LARGE* market.  The fact that people already have  
emulators that require ROMs shows that people are willing to  
disassemble the ROMs in order to know enough about them to build  
emulators that require the ROMs.  Since Mac ROMs are expensive, these  
emulators aren't particularly widespread.

It is not clear that it is possible to give away software that in  
effect has our entire reverse engineered ROMs in it and legally  
prevent people from writing emulators that read our demo into memory  
and then jump in and out of it as necessary.  Again, this may sound  
like paranoia, but due to certain unique aspects of the Mac cloning  
game, it is in fact a serious consideration.

That's why the demo version that's out there can only run a few  
programs; significant portions of ROMlib (our equivalent to the Mac  
ROMs) have been *removed* (not just hidden) in the demo version.

However, all is not lost.  The problem that people are concerned  
about should be ameliorated by a few things:

	NeXT is about to get a site license that will allow all NeXT
	*owned* machines to run Executor 1.3.  This will give them
	greater familiarity with our product and hopefully some of
	them will relay messages about what works and what doesn't.

	We've hired three non-programmers to handle tech. support.
	In the past we've had programmers doing tech. support and
	the unfortunate reality is that they'd get pulled into
	into programming at the expense of keeping logs of what
	works and what doesn't work.

	Executor 1.3 will be able to run more programs.  As more
	things run, the more copies we sell and the more feedback
	we get and the more likely it is that one of you will know
	the answer to the question of does xxx run.  It also means
	that it's more likely that someone you know, or who is in
	your users' group will have a copy of Executor.

	We're selling through dealers now; some of them are testing
	programs and letting us know the results.

	ISV's are increasingly willing to send us software for us to
	test so we can advertise that it runs, or make it run in the
	next version if it doesn't.

Happy Holidays.

	--Cliff