Speaking of survival of Symbolics ...

[Richard Billington <Buff@cis.upenn.edu>]

I have not seen it, but there was apparently an article in the Wall Street
Journal within the past few days saying that Brian Sears is now the
ex-President of Symbolics and that Russel Noftsker (my apologies on spelling)
has somehow changed in status (he was CEO).

Anybody see the article or know anything more?

On a different note, I'd love to hear about Symbolics C as well. I would
like to propose the following marketing plan for Symbolics language
products (except for Prolog which also requires hardware): Give away the
language product with the next release of a system on which its available.
Then charge an initial maintenance fee equivalent to the cost of buying
the software. This would mean that everyone would get to see a new software
product, and if it sticks at our site (people use and don't want to lose it)
then we have to pay to keep it current - no one will want to develop
something without the newest patches etc. The people getting for free would
not get any sources and would get no hardcopy documentation, thus keeping
distribution costs down. As soon as you buy the software these things would
be sent (an additional incentive to buy the software as soon as its clear
you want it).