Bug/problem with lcc-win

[Keith Thompson]

[Articles I post via rr.com still aren't showing up on aioe.org, which
is the news server jacob uses. Since jacob is involved in this
discussion, I'm re-posting my followup through aioe.org so he can see
it, with one typo corrected. If you saw my previous followup, please
skip this one. Sorry for the repetition.]

so stealing from people who can't prevent you is morally acceptable?
wow.

He didn't say that. Look back at the history of this thread.

In the article with message-id
<[email protected]>, David Tiktin
pointed out that lcc-win32 is not free, as Eddie had assumed it was.

jacob's response, message-id <[email protected]>, was:

| You remember that song?
|
| LET IT BE.
|
| If I do not protest why should you?

At that point, jacob said nothing about not being able to prevent
Eddie from stealing. It was not unreasonable for Eddie to conclude
*from that specific followup* that jacob didn't care. (I'm at a loss
to understand why jacob wrote this.)

| Jacob,
|
| Please don't drag my name through the mud. Your compiler was recommended
| to me as a free alternative to Microsoft, and I downloaded it for free
| from your website - I hadn't read the license closely enough to realize
| that it wasn't just pure freeware.
|
| It's true that my company is a low-cost operation - that's what lets us
| keep our premiums low for our customers - but we take our legal
| responsibilies seriously. Could you confirm that your messages in this
| thread are intended as an agreement for us to use your software without
| charge?
|
| Actually, a DOS version of your compiler would be very helpful to my
| company, so we'd be prepared to fund its development. We'd pay up to $50
| per license if you make a DOS version as close as possible to the Windows
| version (initially we'd want two licenses, with the possibility of a third
| to follow).

!!

"you won't support your product the way I want you to, so I'll
stop stealing it from you"

maybe if there were less people like you then Mr Navia would
be able to support his compiler more fully...

It appears that Eddie honestly (and mistakenly) thought that lcc-win
was free for commercial use. (Yes, he should have read the license
more carefully.) When it was brought to his attention that it isn't,
he immediately took steps to correct the situation. He (not
unreasonably, IMHO) took jacob's bizarre and terse "LET IT BE"
response as implied permission to use it without paying for it, *but*
he took the time to verify that.

As for being personally annoyed with jacob, he's hardly the first.
You're assuming Eddie was referring only to jacob's behavior in this
thread.

You've called Eddie a thief in spite of abundant evidence to the
contrary.

[snip]

 

[Sjouke Burry]

$500? Is that a joke?

Do you have any idea of the going rate for professional programmers?

Why not get the free watcom compiler? 16bit c/c++,32bit c/c++
and fortran.
And it is quite good.

 

[jacob navia]

Jacob,

Thanks for the reply.

I've spoken to my boss, and we would consider paying up to $500 for a DOS
version of lcc-win (compiler + IDE + debugger) if it could be developed
within 4 to 6 months. For that we'd expect unlimited-use licenses for both
DOS and Windows versions of lcc-win, but you could also sell licenses to
other customers too (my guess is that the DOS version would have a market
of several thousand companies - I don't think there'll be much slowdown in
the use of DOS for the next 10 to 15 years at least).

If interested, contact me by private email.

Hi Eddie

Please understand the following:
1) I need more or less a year of work to develop a 16 bit DOS
version of lcc-win. This may seem exaggerated to you but
if you consider that there are a lot of memory "models"
to support (tiny, large, medium compact, whatever), then that
the code generation needs an assembler, a linker and a debugger...
A year is an optimistic estimate.

2) I see no market for a new DOS compiler since there are a LOT
of free compilers that do that already. Turboc, watcom,
and many others. This means that you would be the only
customer. I can't work a year for US$ 500. Sorry.

3) I am replying to you in this forum because you posted your
offer in this forum. I just want to set the record straight.
I thank you for your offer but I can't follow it.

Thanks for your understanding.


Since this forum is about the C language, please if you have any
further questions contact me through my mail address.

 

[Flash Gordon]

Cromulent wrote, On 10/06/08 19:50:
However if you had asked Borland to write a version of their compiler
for a system they did not currently support (say, DOS 1.0) then they
would have charged you a *lot* more than $500 for it. Jacob's position
on this is, in my opinion, entirely reasonable.

Okay let me restate my position as it has seems to have caused some
problems.

Jacob has already stated he does not have the time to develop it. The

This would probably change if he was offered enough to not need to do
other work whilst developing it.

fact that the windows compiler is given away for free would indicate
that he also does not have time to offer the support for a proffessional
product.

No, it gives absolutely zero indication of that. Giving away a product
for free for some uses and charging money for other (normally
commercial) uses is not unheard of with professional organisations. For
all we know Jacob could be making serious money on providing high
quality professional support.

This is of course based on assumption but I would be surprised
if it was not true.

Therefore this is effectively a commised work.

All work is a compromise.

Regardless of whether
Eddie allows the Jacob to sell the software afterwards it is irrelevant
as the signs indicate that support for a commercial application is a bit
far fetched.

I believe that Jacob does offer commercial support.

Plus for 4 - 6 months of work a programmer would have to be damn sure
that there was a significant market for his product, which given the DOS
only nature is debatable. I do not see it as being a realist request or
price point given the economics and support requirements that such a
project would require.

Since Jacob is not (I think) running a company with enough funds to stop
paid work for 6 months it would not be practical for him unless he was
provided sufficient funding up front.

Oh and I suppose support would be demanded for the unlimited licenses
that are requesting included in the price.

I stand by original question. Is this a joke?

Oh, I agree, I would consider $500 to do anything more than a small
adaptation to be a joke, for a major endeavour it is ridiculous. The
unlimited licences term would just be adding insult to injury.

Jacob, if I was you I would refuse tell these guys to take a running jump.

 

[Serve Lau]

Thanks for the information, that seems quite simple. Is BLUE an integer
constant? Maybe I can save some space on my source files by just using the
integer value.

I think it would still be better if lcc-win supported writing directly to
video memory as well as using #tconio, this would make it much easier
when porting applications.

This thread went a long way, up to paying 500$ to turn a compiler into a 16
bit one.

isnt it much easier to just change the damn code?? As a bonus you get rid of
the assembler too.

 

[jacob navia]

Cromulent wrote, On 10/06/08 19:50:

However if you had asked Borland to write a version of their compiler
for a system they did not currently support (say, DOS 1.0) then they
would have charged you a *lot* more than $500 for it. Jacob's position
on this is, in my opinion, entirely reasonable.

16 bit DOS code generation is extremely complicated due to the many
memory models that DOS supports, with data pointers either 16 or 32
bits, with code pointers either 16 or 32, and all the combinations of
that, without forgetting the COM model, where everything fits in
64K.

Besides, an assembler must be developed that generates OMF obj files.
I support COFF, hence the whole assembler must be rewritten.

Then, I have to develop a linker that links the OMF files, and produces
16 bits DOS executables, not an easy task.

And to see where I went wrong I need a debugger, the compiler must
emit a new kind of debug information...

This would be a MAJOR development.

This would probably change if he was offered enough to not need to do
other work whilst developing it.


No, it gives absolutely zero indication of that. Giving away a product
for free for some uses and charging money for other (normally
commercial) uses is not unheard of with professional organisations. For
all we know Jacob could be making serious money on providing high
quality professional support.

Not really serious money but I get to earn a living more or less,
actually more less than more

All work is a compromise.


I believe that Jacob does offer commercial support.

I do offer commercial support. I do even give support here for free, and
I indicated to Eddie how to use the compatibility library that is
developed within the 32 bit compiler to meet Eddie's needs.

Since Jacob is not (I think) running a company with enough funds to stop
paid work for 6 months it would not be practical for him unless he was
provided sufficient funding up front.

Obviously. I do not see really someone buying a DOS compiler now. There
are just too many free alternatives. Watcom has excellent 16 bit
support. Turboc is free and it will be hard to beat.

Oh, I agree, I would consider $500 to do anything more than a small
adaptation to be a joke, for a major endeavour it is ridiculous. The
unlimited licences term would just be adding insult to injury.

Jacob, if I was you I would refuse tell these guys to take a running jump.

I have tried to remain polite. I offered support for Eddie, and all of
that without any payment. But there are limits to what can I do.

 

[Serve Lau]

The point was he is using it in a commercial setting which is prohibited
by the license. So changing the code or using the code in any way is a
violation of the license agreement.

I know the dollar is weak but paying 30euro for a license is still a lot
less than 500$

 

[Keith Thompson]

Cromulent said:



Yes, absolutely. And I'm not getting on his case about this. He is under no
obligation to support any platforms that he doesn't want to support. I'm
just trying to explain the rationale behind Eddie's pricing estimate. When
he realises that to get his DOS beans from this supplier he'll have to pay
the cost of building a bean-can factory, he will either change his tastes
or change his supplier.

*If* producing a DOS version of lcc-win32 were just on the edge of
being potentially profitable, due to the potential demand from other
paying customers, it's not inconceivable that an offer of $500 would
be enough to encourage jacob to do the necessary work. It wouldn't be
necessary for Eddie to pay the full cost of the bean-can factory; it
would pay for itself in the long run because other people would buy
beans.

Obviously jacob doesn't feel that this is the case, and he's probably
right. Eddie asked, and jacob said no (quite politely). IMHO that
should be the end of it.

 

[santosh]

*If* producing a DOS version of lcc-win32 were just on the edge of
being potentially profitable, due to the potential demand from other
paying customers, it's not inconceivable that an offer of $500 would
be enough to encourage jacob to do the necessary work. It wouldn't be
necessary for Eddie to pay the full cost of the bean-can factory; it
would pay for itself in the long run because other people would buy
beans.

Obviously jacob doesn't feel that this is the case, and he's probably
right. Eddie asked, and jacob said no (quite politely). IMHO that
should be the end of it.

Actually this whole conversation should have been moved to
comp.compilers.lcc or private email after it became clear that it was
going to be a dialogue between a implementor and potential client.

 

[Flash Gordon]

jacob navia wrote, On 10/06/08 21:33:

Flash Gordon wrote:

This would be a MAJOR development.

Not really serious money but I get to earn a living more or less,
actually more less than more


I have tried to remain polite. I offered support for Eddie, and all of
that without any payment. But there are limits to what can I do.

Agreed. I'm on your side on this one.

 

[Serve Lau]

if you read the thread you'll know that the $30 was for the Windows
compiler. Eddie wanted a DOS compiler developed and offered $500 for that
to be done.

AND change the freaking lines of assembler. Thats why this all started! The
guy has a little problem with a blue console background and doesnt want to
change the code so he ends up offering 500$ to change a complete compiler
system. I read the thread very well it seems other people have trouble
reading here. He could have changed the code and pay 30 euro's for a license
and be done. Its not like code that turns the background blue is spread all
over the software its only a few lines to change.....

 

[Eddie]

I believe Jacob is making the wrong decision, but obviously it's up to
him. People have been predicting the death of DOS for the last 20 years,
and it's still going strong - maybe Jacob could do some market research
company to find out whether there's a viable market. I believe there would
be.

In my experience, most freeware/shareware programs would be lucky to get
$500 in donations/registration fees for the entire lifetime of the
product, so I don't think it's a bad offer for a couple months development
activity.

 

[Default User]

I believe Jacob is making the wrong decision

Please don't top-post. Your replies belong following or interspersed
with properly trimmed quotes. See the majority of other posts in the
newsgroup, or:
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>

 

[Keith Thompson]

I believe Jacob is making the wrong decision, but obviously it's up to
him. People have been predicting the death of DOS for the last 20 years,
and it's still going strong - maybe Jacob could do some market research
company to find out whether there's a viable market. I believe there would
be.

In my experience, most freeware/shareware programs would be lucky to get
$500 in donations/registration fees for the entire lifetime of the
product, so I don't think it's a bad offer for a couple months development
activity.

I have an opinion on that, but I don't have enough information to
support it so I won't bother to mention it.

What I will mention is this.

Eddie, if you're going to be posting here, *please* stop top-posting.

The following links explain what top-posting is and why not to do it:

http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/topposting.php

 

[Eddie]

Hey, screw you, you little worm. I'll post how I goddamn want, is that
clear? Just change the damn record.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Hey, screw you, you little worm. I'll post how I goddamn want, is that
clear? Just change the damn record.

Congratulations, "Eddie", you've just blown any chance of anybody here
being willing to help you.

Bye.

 

[Nick Keighley]

Hey, <expletive>, you little worm. I'll post how I <expletive> want, is that
clear? Just change the <expletive> record.

plonk.

oh, and please don't top-post

 

[Serve Lau]

I believe Jacob is making the wrong decision, but obviously it's up to
him. People have been predicting the death of DOS for the last 20 years,
and it's still going strong - maybe Jacob could do some market research
company to find out whether there's a viable market. I believe there would
be.

In my experience, most freeware/shareware programs would be lucky to get
$500 in donations/registration fees for the entire lifetime of the
product, so I don't think it's a bad offer for a couple months development
activity.

Suppose that compiler got done what then?? Dont you think that a large
percentage of your so called big market would just be staying with their old
compiler because that has worked for so many years already and is free
anyway?

Do you have your blue background by now by the way?

 

[santosh]

Congratulations, "Eddie", you've just blown any chance of anybody here
being willing to help you.

Personally I was suspicious right from the very first post of the OP.
For several months now there have been a steady stream of anonymous
posters asking questions on lcc-win, seemingly to drag jacob through
the mud. My suspicions were confirmed the moment when the OP offered
$500 for developing a compiler, plus a debugger, plus an IDE, and
wanted unlimited use licenses too. Also his insistence on continuing
the discussion in clc, when any serious client would've switched to
private channels.

 

[Serve Lau]

Personally I was suspicious right from the very first post of the OP.
For several months now there have been a steady stream of anonymous
posters asking questions on lcc-win, seemingly to drag jacob through
the mud. My suspicions were confirmed the moment when the OP offered
$500 for developing a compiler, plus a debugger, plus an IDE, and
wanted unlimited use licenses too. Also his insistence on continuing
the discussion in clc, when any serious client would've switched to
private channels.

and all that so he doesnt have to change some assembler to make a background
blue