<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Cincom does not actually own the IP for VSE - when Cincom acquired VisualWorks from ObjectShare (back in 1999), the limited rights to VSE we do have were inherited from ObjectShare. ObjectShare had sold the IP for VSE to Seagull, which later was acquired by Rocket Software. I have no idea whether that company does anything with that IP, or what level of concern they have with it.<br><br>Cincom has no ability to open source VSE; we cannot open source IP which we don't own. You would have to pursue that with the people who own it.<br><br>As to stopping work, recall that VSE was EOL'd by ParcPlace-Digitalk in 1997. It's been in that state ever since. If you look at the Smalltalk products Cincom owns - ObjectShare and VisualWorks - I think you would have to say that we've aggressively supported them and moved them both forward. We are committed to Smalltalk, but there is very little we can do about IP we don't own.<br><div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>On Sep 2, 2010, at 7:53 AM, Henrik Høyer wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div lang="DA" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; "><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Dear All<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">If you have forgotten about Visual Smalltalk (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Smalltalk_Enterprise" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Smalltalk_Enterprise</a>), it is this really cool Smalltalk dialect that enables users to build native Windows applications. Visual Smalltalk is one of the original Smalltalk dialects, and was made by Digitalk. In 1995 active development stopped when the merger between ParcPlace and Digitalk happened. VSE has since been in the hands of ParcPlace-Digitalk, then ObjectShare, and since 1999 Cincom.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">The state of affair of Visual Smalltalk Enterprise (VSE) is not optimal. The VSE community has make several attempts in the past to clear this up. These attempts has all been made quietly and discrete. When I left ESUG last year I was confident that there was a future for open-sourcing VSE. Unfortunately I have since learned that Cincom are not willing to change anything, and are regarding VSE as a cash cow.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">The current status is:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom stopped all work on the VSE platform more than a decade ago<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom continues to collect support fees for VSE<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom has raised the price for VSE licenses<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom only fixes bug on a case-by-case matter. Bugs fixed for one customer is not made available to other customers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom charges huge money for fixing bugs. They charge by the hour, and since they don't have the knowledge one can expect 50-100 hours for trivial fixes<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom does not hold the IP for VSE - Seagull Software does<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom has exclusive rights for selling and supporting VSE<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Seagull Software has no problem selling/donating the IP<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Cincom has refused to sell/donate their rights<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Due to the above, VSE users are jumping through hoops to actually use the product on newer operating systems. To make the matters worse, every time anyone makes a bug fix, we all fear that Cincom will drop its lawyer muscle on us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">I believe that the time has come to stop being discrete and speak up in public. For VSE to have a future we need to act now.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">I would love for Cincom to comment on these issues. Does Cincom really see the free support and maintenance made by the community as a threat to their business? Are Cincom interested in actually supporting VSE, and not just collecting money from their trapped customers? Does Cincom really believe that VSE customers will migrate to other products supplied by them, taking only their word for not abandoning them again in the future?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">Unfortunately I am not able to attend ESUG this year, but I hope that others will raise these questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US">I am pretty sure nobody in the Smalltalk community will benefit from the death of VSE.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div></div><br><table border="0" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(88, 88, 88); font-size: 8pt; "><tbody><tr><td rowspan="5" style="padding-right: 20px; "><a href="http://www.sPeople.dk/" target="_blank" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; "><span><speoplelogo3d6c.png></span></a></td><td style="font-size: 10pt; font-weight: bold; ">Henrik Høyer</td></tr><tr><td>Chief Software Architect</td></tr><tr><td><a href="mailto:hh@sppl.dk" style="color: rgb(88, 88, 88); text-decoration: none; ">hh@sppl.dk</a> • (+45) 4029 2092</td></tr><tr><td>Rued Langgaards Vej 7 • 2300 Kbh. S</td></tr><tr><td><a href="http://www.sPeople.dk/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(88, 88, 88); text-decoration: none; ">www.sPeople.dk</a> • (+45) 7023 7775</td></tr></tbody></table><br><br><br><br></div></span></blockquote></div><br></body></html>