Re: Syndicomm Scam

[Brian <bpicchi@gmail.com>]

On Apr 23, 9:18 pm, mdj <mdj....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, 24 April 2013 00:39:52 UTC+10, Eric Shepherd  wrote:
> > I think people underestimate how much is actually involved here. A few
>
> > things you may not realize:
>
> I would've thought that after not one, but two giants of the Apple II community finding all of this more than they can bear, that people would've gotten it by now.
>
> To be honest, I think it's way past time that we deal with the elephant in the room. It has obviously been *years* since the effort involved in running the operation was in any way reasonably recompensed, and there's only so long you can run it on love. Considering both yourself and Tony love the Apple II more than anyone else I know, it's a testament to the commitment you both have that it's gone on this long. However economics will inevitably catch up with the even the most committed and it's clear that the cost/benefit equation here is a *long* way into the red.
>
> The elephant in the room here seems to be that it is far past the point that the original copyright holders of Apple II material (and I'm excluding Mike here for the moment) care when or how copies of that material are distributed. Almost every Apple II manual ever distributed by Apple themselves can be easily found online in convenient formats, and I'm not aware of anyone ever copping any heat for making them available.
>
> Everything that is except the APDA material :-(
>
> Perhaps it is time to let nature take its course. It seems to me that relinquishing the license and allowing the material (as it inevitably will) to join its companions in the wild online would serve everyone's best interests.
>
> I understand there are some exceptions. Mike (Westerfield) I know is not on board with releasing his products under a free license. I think I remember John Arkley who wrote the original EDASM toolchain for the 8 bit machines is of a similar mindset.
>
> To me, it's ironic to the point of absurdity that in 2013 one can buy a Raspberry Pi for $35, and obtain more information than they'll ever be able to learn about programming the thing with Google with almost zero effort.
>
> Luckily, those of us who prefer the 8 bit Apple II can obtain almost everything we need gratis. A consequence in part of the fact that as Michael puts it, "The documentation weighs less than the machine"
>
> By contrast, the Apple IIGS requires hundreds of dollars of investment to legally obtain the necessary materials. It's almost a surprise to me that anyone is bothering to do it anymore.
>
> Even though we may never be able to free the compilers, it does seem a good time to make a choice. I would hope that that choice once made would become precipitous, but even if it didn't, we would still be in a far better situation than the current one, which is quite obviously causing angst and division in a community that has been on a course towards more unity.
>
> Let it happen guys!
>
> Matt

I completely agree with this.^  It's 2013, it's time to make one can
be free, free. I seriously doubt you'll have people upset that 30 year
old seemingly obsolete material is available online.  Besides, it
seems that buyer's confidence with Syndicomm has been lost so there's
no longer any profit in continuing the effort.