Sat, 19 Mar 1994 00:01:22 +0100
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>It has two magic buzzwords: Unix and free.
I suggest you read the announcement more carefully. The version that is
free is the one that is free today. Future versions will only be free to
CREN members, ie to people who pay a yearly license fee on the order of
$6k. At that price I'm willing to make LISTSERV free :-)
Anyway, there is no need to panic. Exactly a week ago, I made a bet with
a colleague as I informed him that CREN had finally decided to sign the
CREN/L-Soft contract. The bet was that CREN would soon announce that they
have purchased the rights to Tasos's software, and that this announcement
would take place between 1 and 2 weeks from the date of the signature of
the contract. It looks like I lost the bet by three hours :-) At any
rate, this is no surprise and if CREN thinks that it will be beneficial
for CREN and L-Soft to become direct competitors, well, that is their
prerogative. L-Soft and I have played fair, and I genuinely hoped that
CREN could go through the July deadline unharmed, so that the BITNET
network and, above all, the spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance
of the community it embodies would survive. Neither I nor L-Soft stabbed
anyone in the back. I therefore have a clean conscience for what will
happen over the next few months. Competition generally results in better
quality and/or better prices for the consumer, so I guess that, in a sad
sort of way, this WILL be beneficial to CREN, as CREN's official goal is
to further the goals of its members.
Eric
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