James,

I think you should have re-read my original offer before spitting your
dummy (er pacifier) out the way you have done.

I obviously hit a nerve on the list. You can tell that by the shear VOLUME
of responses - both ON and OFF the list. If everything already exists,
then my post would have died a natural death.

> Not only are these other options more likely to return an
> investment in new PIC users, but they will also have a better
> chance of turning a dollar for you AND their authors.

Bold statement.

> In fact, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about why this
> project bothers me so much and others have not....

If it bothers you, then don't be involved. If you want it off YOUR list,
please tell us politely, and we'll get it the hell off YOUR list!

> Everything you are trying to do already exists...

OK, if you applied that logic, then we would never have had Linux.

>  perhaps not in finished form or perhaps not totally up to date,

And there lies the key to the whole discussion, I think.

> When we started the CUMP project, there were only a few "close to
> universal" programmers out there and they cost a LOT of money.

Can I order a CUMP yet? :-)

> This project is doing the same thing... but worse... because our
> OWN MEMBERS, Tony, Wouter, Myke and others, are the ones
> provideing the "almost" perfect products.

I have bought products from Tony. I have bought every book relating to
PICs that Myke has ever published! I do not have a publishing house. I can
not help Myke any further on that one.

>  And rather than offering to help them do
> more or cost less or improve what they have

Did I not make a similar offer to you off list? Tony, Wouter and Myke are
big boys, I think. If they think I can help them they will ask I think. I
have already got a number of enquiries off list for me to help with
commercial projects.

> , we are now starting over again

I never stated we had to start all over again. In fact I made the SAME
offer directly to you some time ago if I recall correctly.

>  and, frankly WASTEING MIT's bandwidth with rediculous
> arguments over how many processors are in a PC and what the legal
> department at MChip might do (mia culpa).

Fair go James, I've seen far more ridiculous postings on this list. If we
are wasting MITs bandwidth, I'd be happy to host the bloody thing!

> I sold another pocket programmer last week, and another few
> dollars goes into the account to build up a fund to pay Tony to
> add the ability to program parallel devices. The pocket can do
> everything and MORE that the Picstart programmer can do EXCEPT
> for program parallel devices... And Tony gave up hope of selling
> it and released it to me (at least) to produce and to anyone to
> modify the open source code. Result: Hours spent trying to design
> "Yet another programmer"/"Yet another development board"/"Yet
> another..."

You have missed the whole point. I NEVER proposed "Yet Another Programmer"
. I said that the list should choose ONE. I also offered to build it as
cheap as I can and suggested that the list support that one and that one
only. Not a hard and fast rule of course, but the gurus could free up
their time by saying "Yes, we'll give you as much help as you need - but
we recommend OUR programmer - available at ....."

> Until the PICList community is willing to put aside ego, and
> contribute to improve the work of others,

I thought that's what I had TRIED to do!

> we will not reach our
> personal potential for growth and enlightenment.

I have reached enlightenment. I bought a Mac 4 years ago. Never looked
back! :-)

> What I have done
> with the PICList.com site was to gather the words of others,
> place them in a nice setting and show them to be the jewels that
> they are. Not my words, but the words of others... I could not
> hope to do better. And my achievement (of which I am very proud)

And so you should be! And look how the list has responded. They may have
gone off on a tangent or two, but I think the responses have been in the
true spirit of the list that I subscribed to. And that's no reason to turn
it into a personal attack against me.

> came only after I was willing to admit that I could not optimize
> a math routine better than Scott, or write an easy to use
> language better than Wouter, or put out a better book than Myke,
> or build a programmer better than Tony, or explain more than
> Roman.

.... or produce a more professionally produced and packaged product than
Sean....

> Stop squabiling (sp?),

IMHO - I think the squabbling has only started with YOUR post.

>  admit that there are leaders here, and
> offer to help THEM.

Again, read my original post. I acknowledged the leaders on this list. I
referred to them as "gurus". And all I could see was them WASTING their
time answering the same old newbie questions over and over again.

I think all newbies would agree with me. We would not want to waste
peoples time if we could buy a box for a reasonable price and it worked -
knowing that if we DID get stuck, help was there!!!!

Shit! Anybody would think I was running for President of the PIC List!

Sean

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