[Papyrus-L] What I can, and cannot, tell you...

[Dave Goldman, Research Software Design]

Wow! I am overwhelmed by the recent messages on this list. Thank you all
for your loyalty and kind words.

Obviously, Papyrus for Windows is a major necessity for both our customers
and for our company.

I have always tried to be candid about our plans and progress. As I have
explained in the past, we decided many years ago to do Papyrus for
Macintosh, and then move that version over to Windows. Unfortunately, it
took us far longer than we expected to complete the Mac edition of Papyrus
(in part because we made a huge number of improvements to Papyrus while we
were at it), and therefore the Windows version has been correspondingly
delayed.

At this moment, though, I cannot go into detail regarding our progress on
Papyrus for Windows.

The chief reason for my reticence involves lawyers. I'm hoping that this
situation -- which has nothing to do with the Windows version of Papyrus,
nor with the future or the well-being of RSD -- will be resolved soon. But
for now I'm told that I must limit my comments regarding company plans.

So for now I can only repeat what you have already heard many times: we
still have quite a bit of work to do on Papyrus for Windows, and we cannot
yet provide a meaningful estimate of when that work will be completed.

Several of you, both on this mailing list and via private e-mails, have
offered to provide us with additional funding to help speed our progress.
Thank you for your creative and generous offers! However, software
development is always a speculative venture, and at this point I am not
comfortable with the idea of accepting such financial contributions from
our customers. We also cannot currently accept any outside funding that
would result in the funders having any legal claim on the work we create.

I will have more to say once the lawyers have removed their muzzle from me.
For now I can only thank you all for your ongoing patience.


-- Dave Goldman (dave at rsd.com)              Research Software Design
   503/796-1368, fax 503-452-8920           617 SW Hume Street
   The PAPYRUS Bibliography System          Portland OR 97219-4458 (U.S.A.)

   Technical Support: support at rsd.com       Other Questions: info at rsd.com
                       WWW Site: http://www.rsd.com/