>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