[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Paul Sture]

On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:13:20 -0400, Stephen Hoffman wrote:

> On 2012-08-21 16:29:38 +0000, Paul Sture said:
> 
>> On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:04:07 -0400, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2012-08-21 14:38:34 +0000, Paul Sture said:
>>> 
>>>> (I have a feeling the latest version of XCode costs, but it's a
>>>> nominal amount, not hundreds of bucks).
>>> 
>>> Xcode 4.4.1 (current) is free.
>>> <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12>
>> 
>> Thanks for the correction.  Xcode 4.0 was $4.99 for just a few months,
>> for folks not subscribed to the $99 per year version of the Developer
>> program.
> 
> Apple could well have used that $5 price to reduce the numbers of
> tire-kickers, at least until the online Xcode App Store distribution
> processes and kits got sorted out.

With the benefit of hindsight it appears that it was the pilot for the 
move to the download-only distribution model that came with OS X Lion, 
just over 4 months later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode#4.x_series

"Apple released the final code for Xcode 4.0 on March 9, 2011

...

As of July 20, 2011 (the day of Mac OS X Lion's release), Xcode 4.1 was 
made available for free to all users of Mac OS X Lion on the Mac App 
Store."

Apple responded to requests for an alternative distribution method for 
those in the sticks with low bandwidth by offering a USB stick at $69, 
and I would say that at that price they were indeed discouraging tyre 
kickers.  The outcome is that the USB option has been dropped for the 
Mountain Lion release; presumably enough low bandwidth folks found 
alternative methods such as visiting their local Apple outlet.
 
> Xcode was included on the OS X installer DVD distros for many years, but
> Xcode and the rest of the tool chain was (and is) revised sufficiently
> often that the copy included on the installer DVD was (is)
> stale.  And the DVD installers ended with the Lion 10.7 release and the
> use of online distribution.

I also recall the Xcode documentation libraries downloading at regular 
intervals, more often than the main body of Xcode itself.

> There are two developer programs available from Apple.  $99 for OS X,
> and $99 for iOS.  The features and benefits are discussed at the Apple
> developer web site.  (These prices are down substantially; a few years
> ago, the OS X developer program was $499 per year.)
> 
> Given this is comp.os.vms, the OpenVMS analog is the AllianceONE program
> (formerly DSPP), and there are some definite differences among the
> program offerings from Apple and from HP.  There are two tiers within
> AllianceONE (and this is fairly well buried in some of the AllianceONE
> web pages): there are individual, and company members.
> 
> And given there are some Windows folks around the group, Microsoft has
> MSDN, BizSpark and a few other licensing programs.  And yes, there are
> program differences.  No, I don't know what those program differences
> are; not in any appreciable detail.

For the Windows folks in the audience it's worth keeping abreast of these 
on relevant developer forums.  Not so long ago I read that if you had a 
product and a website pointing at it, enrolling for the BizSpark package 
was quite painless.

-- 
Paul Sture