A/UX 3rd Party Product Guide

[Tom Barrett]

In article <1990Dec18.051053.12719 at panix.uucp> alexis at panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>
>The problem with this guide is that it one of the few places where Apple really
>fell down on the job. Their marketing folks totally lost control on this one.
>A/UX _is_ very compatible with many Mac apps but there are plenty of mistakes
>in this guide. Also, the room Apple had at MacWorld in August where they did
>some testing was not impressive... it was basically up to "well, yeah, this
>starts up fine under A/UX... OK, it can open and save documents... yeah, this
>looks OK. You're compatible."
>
>Now most of the time, that's OK, because the app really is compatible. But
>take Fourth Dimension, for example. That database is listed in the guide, and
>it is most certainly _not_ A/UX compatible (although it _looks_ like it's
>compatible... Until you try to run it twice...). On the other hand, FoxBase,
>which has as much of a market share as 4D does, is not listed, even though
>(as far as I can tell, and I've used it a lot) it _is_ compatible. So Apple
>did not test on the basis of which applications were most used. I'm at a loss
>to explain what criterion they did use.
>
>There's one other problem. Many products which don't exist, or which aren't
>yet released, are in this book. I think that that's done in poor faith, and
>that _nothing_ should be in that book that hasn't been tested by Apple. After
>all, if they want to distribute a book of A/UX advertisements, they should
>call it that.

When this guide was put together, we considered what it would require for us
to compile, maintain, and distribute (read: take full responsibility for)
this list.  There were a number of factors to consider:

Completeness - Do we need to test every app that's ever run on a Macintosh?
There are thousands of these things.  We could probably get a "reasonable"
subset, but it's likely that _my_ reasonable subset differs from _yours_
and if _you_ are an app developer with a hungry legal department, there might
be more than bad feelings to deal with.

Resources - Once we had these thousands (or hundreds) of apps in hand,
we need to have a staff for testing them.  Although we built the Mac,
many of us are not necessarily expert in the use of some apps,
yet we would have responsibility for assuring full functionality (?).

New version - If we are responsible for testing these apps, do we have to
maintain currency and begin a new test effort everytime a developer revs
their application?

Liability - (Sorry to have to bring this one up, but) what happens when
your real-time widget running XYZ app under A/UX crashes, costing you millions
of dollars?  Hey, Apple _said_ it works fine.

Anyway, due to the above (and more) reasons, we didn't think compiling this
list ourselves looked like a very good idea.  What did look feasible was having
developers test their own software on A/UX and tell us if it worked.
If so, they would be included in the list, which we would maintain and
distribute.  There are deficiencies in this plan, however, which you
and others have highlighted.  The most significant one I've seen is
that some popular apps that do appear to run under A/UX (e.g. FoxBase)
may not be listed until the developer has tested it him/herself, notified
us, and we have updated our on-line list.  BTW, the disclaimer at the
beginning of the guide does state some of what I've just written here.
-- 
-
Tom Barrett  A/UX Engineering
Apple Computer MS 50UX 10300 Bubb Road, Cupertino CA 95014
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