ANNOUNCE: TimingAnalyzer version beta 0.87

On Jul 20, 1:29 pm, Jerry Avins <j...@ieee.org> wrote:

rickman wrote:

...

So just to be clear on this, you don't have a problem with all
embedded related vendors coming to these newsgroups and posting
advertising, marketing, update announcements or asking for "opinions"
on their latest products. Is that right?

Asking opinions can be a marketing ploy. Political and public-interest
organizations often include a questionnaire with low-key appeals for a
donation. Dan is different. He has actually acted on the suggestions he
got, to the point that he has produced new (and improved) versions that
incorporate most of them. In fact, those new versions account for the
profusion of announcements. Yhe longer this thread grows, the more
inclined I become to cheer him on.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

Anyone who (1) develops a tool that is useful, at least in principal,
to the majority of people doing digital design, (2) listens to and
applies feedback derived from these postings, and (3) offers a free
version (limited or not), would seem to be entirely justified in
posting to at least those few groups I've seen these posts in
(comp.lang.vhdl in particular).

In fact, I find a number of arguably more topical, yet grossly stupid,
posts to be much more annoying than these. I have in mind those posts
that (to paraphrase) say "I need a VHDL module for an advanced
multiresolution wavelet homotopy-modulated Fourier domain analyser. I
forget how to use Google. I can also barely understand how to
multiply single digit integers. Please send me the source code and
hold my hand as I make an ass of myself."

Just my two cents.

- Kenn

 

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:30:51 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Jul 20, 10:54 am, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:14:35 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com
wrote:



I'm not trying to bust anyone's balls. But this guy has been
cluttering up a number of newsgroups, Yahoo groups and who knows where
else with his frequent postings. I don't object to his making it
known that there is a new product on the market. I get tired of
seeing his, sometimes bi-weekly, announcements that a new version is
out there. If anyone is looking for a timing analyzer then he will
already be easy to find. If anyone wants to know the current status
of his program he has a web site.

I just think that a lot of people, here and elsewhere, don't so much
"think" about a topic like this, they justify what they "feel". How
would people "feel" if every vendor came here to advertise, announce
new products, new features or even just to solicit comments and
advice? I remember awhile back there were some job postings and it
was rather contentious whether that was considered acceptable. For
the most part people had no logical justification for wanting to allow
that sort of post. They just tried to rationalize their feelings, "if
you were out of work, you would welcome those posts" sort of
thing.

Well my feelings are that I get tired of seeing advertising in this
group and elsewhere. I moderate multiple Yahoo groups and have made a
real effort to exclude the spam. Don't you think these groups would
be better served with less spam?

Rick

Spam is going to part of the internet for the foreseeable future, and
unmoderated newsgroups are always going to be subject to unwanted
intrusions. I suggest you learn to use killfiles and ignore
settings rather than harp on anybody who comes along that might have a
product relevant to the group, because that's not going to stop.
People can make their own decisions and clearly, as in this case, some
people do like getting the information.

For this particular case I think he's been exceptional in that he's
looking for (and getting, and responding to) feedback to make his
product better. Would that all vendors in relevant fields would do
this.

If I understand your post correctly, you are making two points. The
first is that since it is impossible to stop all spam, that we should
not try to stop *any* spam posts, is that correct? That is, when
otherwise reputable companies use spam to promote their products, we
should just shrug our shoulders and consider this part of the Internet
landscape?

I didn't say that, no. You've read a lot into my statements that's
not there. Feel free to re-read.

The second point I think you are making is that you have a personal
feeling that this particular spammer should be allowed because you
don't find his posts offensive. Is that correct?

I wouldn't find ANY posts offensive that led to product improvement
for tools useful to the newsgroup. How would that be off-topic? Feel
free to re-read the last paragraph in my previous post.

So just to be clear on this, you don't have a problem with all
embedded related vendors coming to these newsgroups and posting
advertising, marketing, update announcements or asking for "opinions"
on their latest products. Is that right?

Rick

That's not what I said. Again, feel free to re-read the post to
which you're responding. Especially useful to you might be the part
about ignoring or killfiling sources that you personally don't want to
have to deal with.

Usenet is not, and has never been, a utopia of electronic discourse.
The reality is that there will be objectionable and useless posts
regardless of what anyone does. There also won't always be agreement
on whether certain posts are useful or objectionable, and this case is
a pretty good example of that, evidently.

There's off topic spam (e.g., clothing sales ads in technical groups),
there are trolls, and there are worthwhile contributions, and there's
everything in between. I think what you're seeing is that there are
folks who find the case in point to be in the on-topic and worthwhile
category. Why should that be an issue?


Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

Blog: http://www.dsprelated.com/blogs-1/hf/Eric_Jacobsen.php

 

[Jerry Avins]

rickman wrote:

...

You paid for something, but it is "not commercial". If you bought it
for DOS, I would guess that inflation makes it about equivalent to $20
to $30 now. Jerry, you have a very unique definition of
"commercial".

I labeled it shareware. I don't think shareware is commercial, but I
won't dispute anyone who does.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

 

[Jerry Avins]

rickman wrote:

...

At this point I just think that some people are taking absurd stances
and I am trying to pin them down so they can see what they are really
saying. Or maybe I will see that I am not making sense. Either way,
this discussion is not really about you any more. So don't sweat
it!

It's clear all over again why I like your style.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

 

[rickman]

On Jul 20, 1:02 pm, Jerry Avins <j...@ieee.org> wrote:

John Devereux wrote:

...

But you are not allowed to look at it

http://www.timing-diagrams.com/license.html

"You may not modify, reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the
TimingAnalyzer program."

and there is no long-term commercial interest. This puts it in the
same classification as Linux. He is not selling - he is offering.

..."You must buy a license to use TimingAnalyzer Standard
Edition(SE)"...

It appears to be a commercial program, free for personal,
non-commercial use only. So I agree with rickman.

Years ago, I bought ($10) a very nice interactive star map program
called SkyGlobe for DOS. A few years later, I got a free upgrade for
Windows. I still use it. This stuff is shareware, and I don't think of
it as commercial. I put TimingAnalyzer in the same category. I hope it
hets to be as polished.

You paid for something, but it is "not commercial". If you bought it
for DOS, I would guess that inflation makes it about equivalent to $20
to $30 now. Jerry, you have a very unique definition of
"commercial".

Rick

 

[rickman]

On Jul 20, 10:38 am, timinganalyzer <timinganaly...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jul 20, 9:14 am, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Jul 20, 1:06 am, CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:

As far as I can tell the source is available, and there is no
long-term commercial interest. This puts it in the same
classification as Linux. He is not selling - he is offering.

Did you actually look at his web page? There is nothing "open" about
this program and the only "free" is the limited capability version
licensed only for "personal or academic use", not commercial.

http://www.timing-diagrams.com/license.html

In particular,

"You must buy a license to use TimingAnalyzer Standard Edition(SE)"

and

"You may not modify, reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the
TimingAnalyzer program."

I'm not trying to bust anyone's balls. But this guy has been
cluttering up a number of newsgroups, Yahoo groups and who knows where
else with his frequent postings. I don't object to his making it
known that there is a new product on the market. I get tired of
seeing his, sometimes bi-weekly, announcements that a new version is
out there. If anyone is looking for a timing analyzer then he will
already be easy to find. If anyone wants to know the current status
of his program he has a web site.

I just think that a lot of people, here and elsewhere, don't so much
"think" about a topic like this, they justify what they "feel". How
would people "feel" if every vendor came here to advertise, announce
new products, new features or even just to solicit comments and
advice? I remember awhile back there were some job postings and it
was rather contentious whether that was considered acceptable. For
the most part people had no logical justification for wanting to allow
that sort of post. They just tried to rationalize their feelings, "if
you were out of work, you would welcome those posts" sort of
thing.

Well my feelings are that I get tired of seeing advertising in this
group and elsewhere. I moderate multiple Yahoo groups and have made a
real effort to exclude the spam. Don't you think these groups would
be better served with less spam?

Rick

Hello All,

I'm sorry to be the cause of this debate. Originally, my intentions
were to find some beta testers to help me test the program and at the
same time get some visibility to potential customers. Its hard to
find experience engineers to help. I have been getting feedback from
users of each beta version which has been helpful.

rickman, Yes, I have made the announcement on other groups that I
thought were relative to digital logic timing analysis and drawing
timings. I am not just blindly sendiing frequent postings to any
group that are not related.

But, I will follow any newsgroup guidelines there are and will not
clutter them will frequent announcements anymore if that is considered
spam or not good practice.

Regards,
Dan

Dan,

Please don't worry about it. Although I am saying that I think the
posts are not appropriate for these groups (I can't say about the ones
I don't frequent), I'm certainly not saying you are a bad person or
that your product is bad. I'm really just trying to make a point.
This happened a while back when someone posted an advert about a job
and a long controversy erupted when someone called is spam.

I only posted about it because I have seen your posts frequently in
time and see them in some three or four groups that I read. But you
have said that you won't continue doing that and I am happy with that
response. I wish you good luck with your program and when I have more
time I may take another look at it.

At this point I just think that some people are taking absurd stances
and I am trying to pin them down so they can see what they are really
saying. Or maybe I will see that I am not making sense. Either way,
this discussion is not really about you any more. So don't sweat
it!

Rick