At 11:47 AM 5/23/02 -0400, Duncan wrote:

>In fact, none of the observations about the lack of linking started untl
>the day after the launch of Conversant
>(http://www.free-conversant.com/). Normally, DW likes to be one of the
>first to link to things - especially it it's related to his products. I
>don't think the observations can be construed as pressurisation and, as
>David, points out, were generally expressions of bemusement rather than
>coercion.

But there is a serious underlying problem here which Greg Pierce pointed out,

"I'm more worried about it coming back to bite Macrobyte, frankly...because
such activity undermines confidence in the platform as a whole...and
developers have a symbiotic relationship with the platform."

I am working as a manager in a distance learning outfit at a university and
would not recommend using something like Frontier/Manila because the vendor
is simply too erratic. And I'm not the only person I've seen with this
sentiment -- Manila might be nice to run a personal blog, but would I leave
some important task in the hands of Userland software? No -- I'd prefer not
to get ripped to shreds asking routine support questions.

Conversant lets me route around that by dealing with Seth and leaving Seth
to deal with Userland -- and Seth seems to do a very good job of that (in
fact, Seth has been politely critical of some of my comments about Winer).
But for once WinerLog had the same thought as I did
(http://winerlog.inspiredsites.net/discuss/msgReader$59):

"We wonder, how long before Dave "upgrades" Radio to limit it's TCP
connections, like the old Radio7 product? This would cut off Conversant's
air supply quite quickly. Sounds like Dave's got a trunk of his own he's
gonna stuff..."

The problem is not so much that I think this would actually happen as that
Winer's so erratic, who knows for sure what he's going to do?

It's not just this issue over whether he does or does not point to the
software, but rather that is just one in a long series of events that add
up to one big question mark about Userland and, unfortunately, Macrobyte.
Do you really want to be dependent on software from a company that is
constantly bickering with its third party developers and customers?

(All of which, btw, is why I appreciate Seth's decision not to use his
weblog to discussion Macrobyte related issues -- Scripting.Com sends
contradictory and confusing messages to potential Userland customers).