Each week we hold up a mirror to the people of RISC OS and reflect the current topics of debate.
 
In this, the third exciting installment:

• Demo versions of software
• BBC iPlayer protests won't aid RISC OS
• Another user says goodbye

Demo versions of software

Sources: Drobe, The Icon Bar
 
There are still some excellent software products being developed for RISC OS, but are their sales being limited because potential customers cannot try before they buy? After reading about the forthcoming ArtWorks 2.7 upgrade on Drobe, Simon Challands commented "I really wish there was a demo of Artworks. It all sounds good, but it's far too expensive to buy and then find I don't get on with it."
 
Martin Wuerthner responded "I have been planning to do a demo version for quite some time and it is quite likely that there will be one for ArtWorks 2.7. The problem is not mainly producing the demo software itself but supplying adequate documentation, i.e., tutorials, to show off its features. Obviously, this is something regular purchasers could do with, too! The advent of multi-page documents has made this task far easier because I can now supply multi-page tutorials that look like presentations and are much easier to navigate and handle than having lots of individual example files."
 
There's a different opinion in the R-Comp camp. Andrew Rawnsley said he didn't want to see Messenger Pro demos because "the importance of getting the first 15 minutes "right" with an email client is very important, hence the value of printed documentation and tech support ... There is also the question of whether developing demos rather than the main program is best use of developer time!"

BBC iPlayer protests won't aid RISC OS

Source: comp.sys.acorn.misc
 
A thread ostensibly about petitioning the BBC to prevent it restricting its on-demand television service to Windows users only (a subject we've previously covered on the Icon Bar) soon turned into yet another climate change debate. Peter Naulls bucked the trend and made an on-topic post: "There are plenty of open and closed formats that can be played on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. But which one did have you in mind that would work on RISC OS? There's MPEG2, and that's about it, and even an Iyonix will be limited in what it can play back. Whilst the principle of the opposition is good, it doesn't in practice have much relevance to RISC OS."

Another user says goodbye

Sources: Robert Hampton's blog, RISC OS Ramblings
 
Another RISC OS user has given up. At least, he - he being Robert Hampton - has given up using RISC OS - I doubt he's just given up in general, unless he's feeling terribly depressed. Something which might make him feel depressed is "the deterioration in the RISC OS community. One of the plus points for RISC OS over the past few years was that a friendly community of users existed out in cyberspace. Not any more though; the remaining users on the comp.sys.acorn groups seem to prefer squabbling."
 
Cheatwarrior has noticed this too, posting on his new RISC OS Ramblings blog. "My inbox quickly fills up with many mailing list e-mails with petty and childish arguments that can be avoided. RISC OS seriously needs new people and they all get driven away by the amount of backstabbing in the community."
 
Back to Robert Hampton, whose article neatly parallels the feelings John Hoare expressed last year. He continues: "It would have been tempting [when Acorn closed down its workstations division] to simply say goodbye and switch to Windows, but I didn’t - partly because I’m a stubborn bastard, but mainly because there were lots of good reasons to continue with RISC OS. The PC world was stuck with Windows 98, which had all the lovely games and multimedia addons ("Intel Inside! Dun-dun-dun-dun!"), but simply wasn’t as pleasant to use ... More frustrating was the tendency to dismiss these useful add-ons as "PC bloatware", when that clearly isn’t the case. While the rest of the web moved on into a world of entertainment, multimedia, music and video, the RISC OS web experience has remained steadfastly text and PNG-based ... As 2007 dawned, I found myself facing up to the famed "you’ll have to upgrade them every few years" issue that RISC OS advocates (including myself, it has to be said), used to scream about. But you know what? When I upgraded, I felt like I was getting something useful out of the deal. And, realistically, the only reason I could get away without upgrading my RISC OS machine for so long was because the platform had stagnated."
 
It's clear that more and more users are thinking this way - but is anything being done to address the issue? Can anything be done? And what's the point of it all anyway? I guess now I'm the one who's feeling terribly depressed.