Re: Dov's help, Shooting the messenger, Fruitless posts

[Larry Kollar <Larry.Kollar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>> Color me unconvinced that simple speculation was enough to precipitate
>> Dov's leaving the list. ...
> 
> The speculation has been going on for years, and I can't remember a
> week in the past year or so in which the question hasn't been brought
> up on this list. Sure he could filter it out, as I do, but my guess is
> that Dov's received more than his fair share of private e-mails about
> it as well.

Maybe I'm just not as sensitive to the ebb & flow, but it seems like
weeks go by without any serious speculation on the list. It comes and
goes; this time it was worse than usual but another list was created
to siphon off part of the chatter & it was dying down.

Sending private email to Dov about it would be bad manners, for sure,
just like when people address technical questions directly to Dov
instead of just posting to the list & getting an answer from whoever.
I've seen the latter for a fact, and winced each time it happened.


>> ... if an "independent user-oriented mailing
>> list" isn't the place to talk about the future of a product, then
>> I'm stumped for a more appropriate venue. 
> 
> Well, I doubt people in your lunchroom like to hear people whining
> about their car repairs or impending divorces either. Same scenario,
> only this is online.

There's no lunchroom here, and I don't see how it's the same scenario
in any case. It's more like the lunchroom operators dropping a dish
that a few people really really like, and making vague statements
instead of communicating with those people who want to have that dish
available. The nearest restaurant, Word Diner, is too far away to get
there and back during lunch & serves lousy food anyway. But I guess
if we don't like it, we're supposed to just shut up & not discuss it.

Co-workers have complained about car repairs, BTW, and I've welcomed
that because I know where *not* to take my car....


>> A lot of the Mac-specific
>> chatter already moved to Paul Findon's list, BTW, and the threads
>> here & on FrameUsers were already showing signs of winding down &
>> would have been naught but background noise by next week.
> 
> Possibly, but that's not an excuse to warrant the behavior, is it?

What behavior? Talking about FrameMaker on a FrameMaker list?

>> And, I would point out, a simple comment from Adobe PR -- "we have
>> shut down MacOS development for FrameMaker, but intend to continue
>> developing Windows and Solaris versions for the foreseeable future"
>> for example -- would have killed all speculation.
> 
> There was a press release.

Which said, in essence, "we're no longer selling Frame on MacOS." No
reassurance for users of the other two OSes. As (I think) Paul pointed
out last week, Adobe made a very public commitment to port "flagship
products" to OSX -- if Adobe intends to keep Frame going for Solaris
and XP, and knows it, why not make it explicit? (Oops, I just typed
something that could be construed as speculation about Frame's future
again, and on a FrameMaker list no less. So sorry.)

--
Larry Kollar, Senior Technical Writer, ARRIS
"Content creators are the engine that drives
value in the information life cycle."
    -- Barry Schaeffer, on XML-Doc


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