Re: Research Systems Platform Support Update [message #28326] |
Tue, 04 December 2001 10:46 |
Stein Vidar Hagfors H[1]
Messages: 56 Registered: February 2000
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Member |
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Matthew Powell <mpowell@rsinc.com> writes:
[...]
> Research Systems is committed to supporting our customers with their
> varied platform requirements while maintaining financially sound
> business practices. Our goal is to communicate all pertinent information
> to our customers in a timely fashion in order to allow them ample time
> to make well informed platform decisions. Accordingly, we would like to
> reassure our customers on other currently supported platforms that we
> have no plans to discontinue any of them at this time. We ask customers
> for assistance in planning for the future by informing their sales
> representatives about their future platform purchase plans so that we
> can better support our customer base. We also ask that our customers
> take a moment to complete and return a brief survey that will be
> e-mailed to them shortly regarding their current platform usage and
> future purchase plans.
If RSI had only done this *before* making their previous decision,
we'd all have slept better... I really wonder what will happen, given
recent experiences, if a viable, free, open-source alternative should
emerge..
--
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Stein Vidar Hagfors Haugan
ESA SOHO SOC/European Space Agency Science Operations Coordinator for SOHO
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Email: shaugan@esa.nascom.nasa.gov
Mail Code 682.3, Bld. 26, Room G-1, Tel.: 1-301-286-9028/240-354-6066
Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA. Fax: 1-301-286-0264
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Re: Research Systems Platform Support Update [message #28338 is a reply to message #28326] |
Tue, 04 December 2001 03:35  |
Struan Gray
Messages: 178 Registered: December 1995
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Senior Member |
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Matthew Powell, mpowell@rsinc.com writes:
> In response to customer requests for continued
> support of Mac OS X, IBM AIX and Compaq Tru64
> Unix for Alpha platforms, Research Systems Inc.
> (RSI) announced today that it will reverse an
> earlier decision to drop support for these three
> platforms in future releases of IDL and ENVI.
As someone who complained publically about the intial decision, I
hereby issue a public "whew, thanks." Of course, the proof of the
pudding is in the eating, but this is enough of a taster for me to
continue maintainance for a little while yet.
I shouldn't really be surprised, but does anyone else feel their
intelligence being insulted by these two statements:
> For the Macintosh OS X platform, .....
> ...
> This essentially allows RSI to support Mac OS X as
> another Unix platform, thus reducing the costs of
> development and support.
> ...
> there will be a corresponding modest increase in
> maintenance and new license prices for the Macintosh
> platform in order to cover the associated development
> and support costs.
What they mean of course, is that since MacOS X is really Unix, Mac
licences are really Unix licences, and Unix licences cost more. Shall
we have a sweepstake on the value of 'modest'?
Struan
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Re: Research Systems Platform Support Update [message #28341 is a reply to message #28338] |
Mon, 03 December 2001 21:32  |
Richard French
Messages: 173 Registered: December 2000
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Senior Member |
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Matthew Powell wrote:
>
> In response to customer requests for continued support of Mac OS X, IBM
> AIX and Compaq Tru64 Unix for Alpha platforms, Research Systems Inc.
> (RSI) announced today that it will reverse an earlier decision to drop
> support for these three platforms in future releases of IDL and ENVI.
>
Power to the people! This is a big relief! Now, we just need to make
sure that RSI gets the word that these platforms really are being used!
Fill in those questionnaires, Alpha users!
Dick French
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Re: Research Systems Platform Support Update [message #28344 is a reply to message #28343] |
Mon, 03 December 2001 19:58  |
Paul Woodford
Messages: 43 Registered: June 2000
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Member |
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In article <3C0BB8FD.CF2A511F@rsinc.com>,
Matthew Powell <mpowell@rsinc.com> wrote:
> For the Macintosh OS X platform, RSI will be providing a native release
> using Tenon Intersystems� Xtools X-Windows server, giving customers the
> benefit of OS X's Unix core while providing a Motif interface similar to
> that provided on other Unix platforms.
[...]
> For IDL customers, this solution provides a fully native version of IDL
> to the Macintosh user [...]
Well, I wouldn't quite call it fully native. The original plan was for
a fully native version; this version will be a bit of a hack. I'm happy
to see Altivec optimization made the cut. I do plan to check it out. A
word of warning for RSI tech support, though - I have not been
persistent in reporting bugs and user interface ugliness in the Linux
version because I have been developing on the Mac. The Mac interface
has been much nicer than the Linux interface, so I simply minimized my
exposure to the Linux interface. If I do start using the OS X version,
and if it does inherit to interface bugs and ugliness of the Linux
version, I'll be complaining.
Who knows, maybe I will check to see if the OS X version of emacs is
anything other than ugly...
Paul
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Re: Research Systems Platform Support Update [message #28349 is a reply to message #28344] |
Mon, 03 December 2001 12:42  |
gurman
Messages: 82 Registered: August 1992
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Member |
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In article <3C0BB8FD.CF2A511F@rsinc.com>, Matthew Powell
<mpowell@rsinc.com> wrote:
> In response to customer requests for continued support of Mac OS X, IBM
> AIX and Compaq Tru64 Unix for Alpha platforms, Research Systems Inc.
> (RSI) announced today that it will reverse an earlier decision to drop
> support for these three platforms in future releases of IDL and ENVI.
[snip]
Hear, hear.
I think that's one massive (if conditional) sigh of relief I hear.
Joe Gurman
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