Re: Netscape for Linux?

At 10:42 PM 9/23/95 -0400, you wrote:
>It seems to me that you folks are going out of your way to deny the
>fact that the Linux market exists. I think that its because you are
>embarassed that all these people with a $20 operating system are
>throwing money at you while all the folks with $10K operating systems
>aren't talking to you at all. 
>
>While you may WANT to have all your sales be for OSF/1 machines or
>solaris, but refusing to support Linux and ignoring the demand for
>your products by the Linux community just because you don't think it
>would sound as impressive, is actually quite childish and doesn't make
>any financial sense.

Foo.  Supporting applications in a professional way on Linux is _tough_;
everybody's got their own self-hacked copy that may have started out as
SlackOS 4.1.3 but has the TooManyNotes Sound Widget replacement and has the 
XBrokenX video driver instead of the original one that didn't work
on the TiltedSquareSneakyVideoCard and a way-cool new Obfuscated File System.
It's like supporting things on "Unix" was back when everybody had source and
a different flavor of M680x0 box.  You can't just ask "Have you changed the
AUTOEXEC.BAT since the machine came from the factory?" like Windoze app-vendors.
Netscape may not have ever been _compiled_ with the compiler version the
user has,
much less tested on that kernel version, and the user may or may not know
if their X Window System really is installed right or the TCP/IP connection 
works well and has working DNS support.

Sure, it's easy to charge money for shipping the stuff with a diskette and
a manual, but not doing so until they're ready to provide high-quality support
isn't childishness, it's ethics (well, and/or bad-reputation-avoidance.)
Now, I haven't checked whether they've trained all their people who answer
phone calls from the public to acknowledge that there is an unsupported
Linux version
for folks who don't mind dealing with unsupported software, or if they've
even got it on their Web site; the current version is there for ftp.
#---
# Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# Phone +1-510-247-0664 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281
#---

On September 23, Bill Stewart wrote:

> 
> Foo.  Supporting applications in a professional way on Linux is _tough_;
> 
              <Disparaging comments about Linux deleted>

As a Linux user and advocate, I've gotta agree here.  I'm glad that
Netscape is going to continue to supply us with an unsupported binary,
and I can't blame them a bit for not wanting to support an OS where
every user has his own private version number ... would be nice if we
could get 128 bit keys, though ... (hint, hint).

As for your other comments about Linux - would you care to take off your
coat and meet me in Comp.os.flamewars sometime?  ;-)

-- 
Jeff Simmons                           jsimmons@goblin.punk.net

In article <199509241746.KAA01423@goblin.punk.net>, jsimmons@goblin.punk.net (Jeff Simmons) writes:
> As a Linux user and advocate, I've gotta agree here.  I'm glad that
> Netscape is going to continue to supply us with an unsupported binary,
> and I can't blame them a bit for not wanting to support an OS where
> every user has his own private version number ... would be nice if we
> could get 128 bit keys, though ... (hint, hint).

  We are working this issue with the government.  As soon as we can
make it available for download we will.

	--Jeff

-- 
Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist
Netscape Communication Corporation
jsw@netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw
Any opinions expressed above are mine.

Jeff Weinstein writes:
> > ... would be nice if we could get 128 bit keys, though ... (hint,
> > hint).
> 
> We are working this issue with the government.  As soon as we can
> make it available for download we will.

In other words, we will never see it in our lifetimes -- the
bureaucreeps aren't known for promoting the spread of strong crypto.

By the by, are you guys going to be taking any action vis a vis the
discovery of weak keys in RC4?

Perry

In article <199509251135.HAA13693@frankenstein.piermont.com>, perry@piermont.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:

> Jeff Weinstein writes:
> > > ... would be nice if we could get 128 bit keys, though ... (hint,
> > > hint).
> > 
> > We are working this issue with the government.  As soon as we can
> > make it available for download we will.

> In other words, we will never see it in our lifetimes -- the
> bureaucreeps aren't known for promoting the spread of strong crypto.

  Where did I imply that if the govt. ignored us or said no that we
would meekly go away with tail between legs?

> By the by, are you guys going to be taking any action vis a vis the
> discovery of weak keys in RC4?

  We are talking to RSA about this, since our crypto code is based
on BSAFE code we got from them.

	--Jeff

-- 
Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist
Netscape Communication Corporation
jsw@netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw
Any opinions expressed above are mine.