This thread has been absolutely facinating to read.

I share no great love of mickeysoft. But one must realize that people who
work in the "visual studio" world have almost no visibility to Ada. All one
has to do is read the paper to see the number of ms programming positions,
the math is imple after that. Here in SLC there are 3 companies that use
Ada, and hundreds who've never heard of it. If creating a forum using MSN
allows more people to learn about Ada then what is the complaint. I fear
that the Ada community's worst enemy is itself. Instead of being happy that
there is another forum for people to discover and learn about Ada, we
crucify a volunteer who has put his own time into something that benefits us
all.

As far as browsers go, let me share my recent experience with the FCC's new
Universal Licensing System. It replaced an standard HTML online system with
a netscape only version. Thus ending online registration for thousands who
have to use the system from home and don't wish to spend hours downloading
netscape. One of the techs hinted that the govt mandated netscape in an
effort to shore up the browser. This is just poor design and is at least as
underhanded a means of market manipulation as what Microsoft is doing. Two
years ago I could do everything for my license online, now I'm back to paper
and the mail system (your tax dollars at work???).

I realize that ms is not a popular company, but I think it's time to get
past the petty politics and accept reality. I use Star office, but guess
what, it won't let me read all my ms documents so I have to have Office. How
many companies don't use MS office as their standard platform? I don't know
of any in my circles of friends. Just for grins I was able to access the
whole thing using Netscape with no problems at all.

Honestly, if MS came out with VisualAda, it'd be a hit and would take the
world by storm. But that can't happen if we continue to widen the rifts in
the SW community. As far as monopolies go, did phone calls become cheaper
when ATT was broken up? The answer is no, and look who is gobbling up
everything again, ATT. Some monopolies are good, history bears that out. I'm
just glad I can finally send a file to someone in BFE and they can read it
without having to jump through hoops.

That's my two bits...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: W. Wesley Groleau x4923 [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 10:34 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: ASE LIBRARY, an MSN Web Community
>
> > Hopefully, being driven to Microsoft technologies for this site won't
> drive
> > anyone away.  Besides, there is always direct contact, but the resources
> of
> > the Community take a lot of the work of collaboration away.
>
> Dismiss me as a short-sighted fool if you wish, but I (and I'm not alone)
> will NOT patronize anything that supports Bill Gates's effort to make
> "non-standard" be interpreted as meaning "non-Microsoft"
>
> --
> Wes Groleau
> http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau