[Papyrus-L] Re: Pap vs. others and where's Dave?

[Jan Herrmann]

Dave,

>This effort has been greatly complicated by Apple's very recent 
>announcement that it will no longer support and develop MacApp.

in what state is MacApp for other platforms?
Looking at the according Apple website 
(http://developer.apple.com/tools/macapp/exchange.html) there are a 
number of software companies which seem to use MacApp. What do they 
do? Are you in contact to them to speak together? Did they find other 
solutions for cross platform development?

Although I know from my unsuccessfull trials to get the AppleWorks 
managers convinced to share their document code, how unsatisfying it 
is, I would like to know if you see any chance for public pressure?
It mustn't be that Apple is continuing the development, but maybe 
that others are allowed to do so. We could bring the issue to other 
discussion groups, internet sites and so on, if you think it could 
have a positive outcome.
Indeed this makes sence only if we have a clear idea of what should 
be demanded.


>- Will some other company continue to develop new versions of Papyrus?
>
>To date we have not been approached by any companies interested in doing so.

But would you be interested in other companies, asking for the chance 
to invest (financially or personally) in Papyrus? Then we could try 
to find suitable companies?  Maybe they just don't know of their luck.


>- Can Papyrus users send money to Research Software Design to fund further
>development?
>
>I'm afraid that this doesn't appear practical to me. We'd be talking
>funding the salaries of at least a couple of senior programmers for at
>least a year. That's a lot of money. And I would not be comfortable with
>accepting such funds when I cannot guarantee the successful completion of
>the project -- both because of the nature of software projects in general,
>and because of possible MacApp licensing difficulties with Apple.
>Abandoning MacApp is a possibility, but that would add significantly more
>time to the project.

I am maybe naive, but because I know that Papyrus is such an unique 
application, I also think it should be economically successfull. 
Therefore I would like to know just roughly what the costs would be, 
when a working beta of Papyrus for Windows should be there in about a 
year? Knowing this approximate number we could see if we are enough 
to organize the money or other investors.

I am also still trying to promote the brillant Mac version of 
Papyrus, but a definite statement that there won't be a MacOS X 
version at anytime can keep potential buyers away. Making it 
dependent on the sales for Mac OS is something different in my eyes.

-Jan
-- 
---> Jan Herrmann               <jan.herrmann at cetacea.de>
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