RE: Genera 8.0 Announcement

[TYSON@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM (Mabry Tyson)]

I had missed that point(that your site will not get the distribution
if Symbolics thinks you may have computers that are not eligible) in
the 8.0 message.

>  Please note that in order to receive new software release distributions,
>  all Symbolics systems at your site must be eligible to get the release.
>  The Genera 8.0 distribution will not be sent to customers for whom any
>  of their systems are ineligible, unless Symbolics has agreed in writing
>  that such systems are "deactivated".

I find it hard to believe that Symbolics could think they could do this.
If I have one machine on maintenance, there is a contract between Symbolics
and my company such that Symbolics must provide the new releases of the
software.  I believe I also have some requirement not to distribute that
software to ineligible machines (however, I am less sure where this
requirement comes from so I don't know the particulars.  It probably is
in the same maintenance contract.).  I certainly don't remember seeing any
provisions about this "deactivated" clause.

I will point out that there are various reasons why a machine may not be
on software maintenance.  The most common one would be administrative error.
(When Symbolics sent their first quote for 1989-1990, I had to send back
over 5K characters of corrections to the equipment configurations.  Most
of these were corrections that had been done the previous year.)  Occasionally
there is a reason why a machine must be taken off of contract for a while
(because of funding breaks for the only legal maintainer--the government--for
the machine).

I can appreciate that Symbolics doesn't want any customers to abuse
the fact that they got 8.0 for one or more machines and to install it
on a machine not on maintenance.  (I don't ever recall getting a list
of serial numbers of machines for which a distribution was valid.  Is
Symbolics up to doing that this time around?)

However, if Symbolics were not to ship their product to a site that
has at least one machine on Software Contract Service or Software
Subscription Service, I would suspect they are in violation of that
contract.

I hope Symbolics will clarify that they do not intend to violate their
requirements to Software Maintenance customers.
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