| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 3447.1 | | STAR::KLEINSORGE | Fred Kleinsorge, VMS Development | Tue Oct 09 1990 16:21 | 24 |
| Why not flame here too...
The TEK 4125 emulator should NOT be a revenue product. This product
was largely developed and paid for by HPWS and VWS (along with some
strong support from the field). This product is required to "get our
foot in the door" in many accounts for DECwindows. DECwindows is far
too short on added value as it is, THIS is the kind of thing that is
needed to make it competetive.
The problem is that DECterm and the TEKterm applications are being
developed where there is little or no funding for them. People are
routinely jerked to work on "revenue" products for VIPS -- in short,
what is in the best interest of DEC workstations *isn't* always in
their best interest. This emulator has taken on the order of 2 years
to get from a working X11 application to a DECwindows application ready
to ship.
VWS has been shipping both a TEK 4014 and a TEK 4125 emulator for well
over a year - as part of the kit (which is bundled with VMS
workstations). There is no reason that people using the "old"
window system should now have to pay for a DECwindows equivalent --
no matter how much better it might be...
|
| 3447.2 | Put it on the kit | LESLIE::LESLIE | Andy Leslie, CSSE/VMS | Wed Oct 10 1990 05:15 | 1 |
| I'm with Fred. Get this where it belongs.
|
| 3447.3 | VWS tek 4125 emulation never worked | HANNAH::OSMAN | see HANNAH::IGLOO$:[OSMAN]ERIC.VT240 | Wed Oct 10 1990 12:25 | 30 |
| >VWS has been shipping both a TEK 4014 and a TEK 4125 emulator for well
>over a year - as part of the kit (which is bundled with VMS
>workstations).
>This emulator has taken on the order of 2 years to get from a working X11
>application to a DECwindows application ready to ship.
No. The tek 4125 part never worked on VWS. Only some simple tek 4014
pictures and applications work on the VWS version. For all usable
purposes only 4010/4014 emulation was given for free with VWS. I
had to fix many problems in the VWS code that was given to me, in
order to make a usable DW4125 version for DECwindows.
Digital gave away tek 4010/4014 emulators for free in the past with
various terminal products.
VIPS (our group that is trying to ship the DW4125 product for money)
made a business decision that tek 4125 emulation should cost money,
as it is a more complicated emulation than 4010/4014 emulation.
Personally, as the engineer on this project, I basically agree. We
can make money with it.
I agree with you that management delayed this project by putting me
on other projects for awhile, such as the VT1000 project. I'm
trying very hard now to convince them, with actual customer
feedback, that this DW4125 product is worth shipping.
/Eric
|
| 3447.4 | Excuse me? | IO::MCCARTNEY | James T. McCartney III - DTN 381-2244 ZK02-2/N24 | Wed Oct 10 1990 12:30 | 19 |
|
I don't understand this last note. What do you mean never worked?
The code is shipping in a SUPPORTED product, has official support channels
in place and has receive few problem reports. The product is known to be
used (by significant independant software vendors no less) and has received
relatively few bug reports.
In my own opinion this qualifies as WORKING!
If you feel that there is a significant quality issue in regards to the VWS
TEK terminal emulators, then it is incumbent upon YOU to contact the management
of the VWS project and express those concerns. I know you know who to call!
If you know the problem, DOCUMENT them and get them FIXED and stop this
mud-slinging tirade that you seem to be on!
James McCartney.
|
| 3447.5 | | HANNAH::OSMAN | see HANNAH::IGLOO$:[OSMAN]ERIC.VT240 | Wed Oct 10 1990 15:27 | 9 |
| >If you know the problem, DOCUMENT them and get them FIXED and stop this
>mud-slinging tirade that you seem to be on!
Your own projection. I'm not intending mud-slinging. And I *did* get
them fixed, in DW4125, which comes from the same sources as the VWS
version.
/Eric
|
| 3447.6 | it's free with vws | VMSSPT::J_OTTERSON | | Wed Oct 10 1990 15:48 | 9 |
| If it's free for VWS, then it should be free with decwindows. I'll probably be
kicking myself for this later, but that's what I think. There have not been
a small amount of problems with TEK emulation under VWS, but what customers need,
they should get.
If there were bugs that you found (Eric) please please please make sure that VWS
knows about them. I would hope that they would give you the same regard.
Jeff.
|
| 3447.7 | | STAR::KLEINSORGE | Fred Kleinsorge, VMS Development | Thu Oct 11 1990 17:06 | 19 |
| Eric,
Since I have had several mail messages from VWS engineering regarding
this little flap, I would request that you or your management contact
them regarding the issues surrounding the bugs that you believe are in
the VWS TEK4125 emulator. You can contact Irene McCartney, Bill
Aupperlee or Steve Seufert directly. I know that they are interested
in talking to your management.
I have no direct experience with using the TEK4125 emulator, but I do
know the TEK/X11 developer quite well and have a lot of respect for his
abilities. I doubt that you made significant improvements that
warranted well over 2 years of additional development time.
It is things like this that make me wonder why we didn't hit 47 a lot
sooner.
Put it on the DECwindows kit.
|
| 3447.8 | making software for profit (fun is out, these days) | SIMON::SZETO | Simon Szeto, ISEDA/US at ZKO | Fri Oct 12 1990 11:37 | 27 |
| Speaking for once from the perspective of a development manager, my advice to
those in the field is, let Product Management know that there are indeed paying
customers out there for this product. You can justify it either with a forecast
of units that will be sold, or with a forecast or revenue that would be lost if
this product were not available.
Like it or not, getting revenue for our products is catching on.
In this particular case, since I'm not VIPS, I'm not sure what the idea is here.
Is it limiting our losses (given we already sunk x man-years into the project)?
Hindsight would say that if it's truly important to make money on this project,
and it doesn't look like we will, then it should not have passed Phase 0. But
I hasten to add that I don't know the background, so I'm not trying to second-
guess VIPS.
Having had some experience in the recent past with unprofitable products, I can
see the point of balancing the cost of doing something against what revenue we
get back. (I have some specific examples but I'm not going to put them in a
notes file.)
The irony is that it costs just as much to engineer and support a product,
whether you get zero orders or 10,000. (Well, at least the engineering costs
are the same, and sustaining engineering also, which is what I suspect "support
costs" means in the quote in the topic note.) But I'm getting into territory
better suited for the MARKETING notes file.
--Simon
|
| 3447.9 | advice to developers adopting someone else's code | HANNAH::OSMAN | see HANNAH::IGLOO$:[OSMAN]ERIC.VT240 | Fri Oct 12 1990 12:42 | 45 |
| I'll be happy to talk with other groups about the various bugs I've
fixed in the tek emulator for DECwindows. We'll of course have to
resolve the pay-vs-for-free issue, since it would not work to have
one group trying to sell the emulator and another applying the same
bug fixes and giving it away.
Please stop saying "2 years development time". It was 2 years
duration during which the following obstacles came up:
o For quite awhile the project wasn't even being worked on at all,
as VIPS put us on other projects that they deemed were so important
that we work on those instead
o TASTE support was removed, meaning the formal testing organization
was no longer supporting us, hence we had to rely on running tek
applications on the emulator to verify that it worked
o Tek applications tend not to be available in-house, hence getting
tek applications meant finding real potential out-of-Digital
customers to try the emulator
o The code was NOT in as good shape as was our original dream of "just
put it in the library and ship it".
One of the things I'd say in hindsight is that the discussion that went
something like:
mgt: Sorry, TASTE support is no longer available.
Egr: Hmmm, well, it would take several months to develop tests
for the 154 tek functions, and another month to conduct a
formal code review. We'd better rely on the customer's
actual applications.
should have gone like this instead:
...
Egr: ... SO WE'D BETTER TAKE THE MONTHS NEED AND DO THE FORMAL
CODE REVIEW AND WRITE ALL THE FUNCTION TESTS AND *NOT* JUST
RELY ON CUSTOMER'S APPLICATIONS.
I suggest that for any other of you engineers facing the same dilemma.
/Eric
|
| 3447.10 | | PSW::WINALSKI | Careful with that VAX, Eugene | Fri Oct 12 1990 17:17 | 5 |
| RE: .9
Please take this off-line.
--PSW
|
| 3447.11 | | LESLIE::LESLIE | Andy Leslie, CSSE/VMS | Fri Oct 12 1990 19:06 | 7 |
| I concur. This conference is not the right forum for this debate,
please take it elsewhere.
This topic has been locked.
Andy Leslie
Co_moderator, DECWINDOWS
|