[Gem-chat] OK, I'll try these groups...

[Davey Brain]

Hi,
I assumed after several years that I was still a member of GEM-Dev, but 
my email was bounced as it awaited aproval from the moderator for me 
BEING A NON-MEMBER after belonging to GEM-Dev for at least 4 years.  I 
am going to try this again to these groups.  I assume that I'm still a 
member of these groups, right?  If these don't get through I'll try 
emailing some members to see what is wrong with my membership and to ask 
that someone post this to the group as I feel very strongly on this 
subject and wish all to know just how I feel:

My message to GEM-Dev:

Hey all,
I am very busy right now between my real job, my paying business and my 
non-profit computers-for-kids organization.  So I got behind on a lot of 
email.  After deleting about 700 messages in the 2 snobby linux groups 
(most of which I neither understood nor cared about) I still had well 
over 1,800 messages to go through.  After catching up on my eCS-OS/2 
groups and my TI-99 group I headed here.  I was surprised, shocked and 
saddened as I read the messages.  Halfway through I felt like I was in a 
Linux planning committee group not Gem-Dev.  Then the talk of actually 
abandoning GEM began and I couldn't believe my ears.

What is the purpose of playing with GEM for you guys?  Was it really to 
make a usable system for evryone in the world?  If so you all deluded 
yourselves.  GEM is no more useful for the majority of the world than an 
IBM-XT class machine is.  You should have approached it, and should 
continue to approach it, as what it is: a hobby and nothing more.  And a 
fun one at that.

The statement that disturbed me the most was sort of a wrap-up statement 
of much of what had been tossed around and only briefly mentioned by others:

"Perhaps we need to begin planning to wind up the group, probably around 
the time Shane's version 3 is released."  Peter Green

Why?  Why wrap it up?  It's a hobby for heaven's sake, not the killer 
GUI to take the world by storm.  Do you think I do anything really 
useful with the IBM PS/2 E system I just bought?  Do I link up to my 
digital camera with OS/2 V1.3?  Do I program mission-critical apps using 
Locomotive BASIC 2?  Heck no, I have fun!  That is the real point, to 
have fun!  And when in the last year have any of us had fun with GEM or 
even had a little fun in the group?

There are thousands of groups and lists catering to Linux and 32-bit 
windows.  There are even hundreds focusing on OS/2 and DOS and 16-bit 
Windows.  There are quite a few BeOS groups.  But as near as I can tell 
we are unique.  Talk about GEM and we are it.  Do we really want to 
disappear?  I can't and won't let it happen.  If it is decided by the 
powers-that-be to disband this group or make it inactive and useful only 
as an archive, then let me say that I will start another group, probably 
the only way I know how on something like Yahoo Groups to start out.  I 
will solicate members anywhere I can and try to focus on the fun hobby 
of using GEM, and maybe even expand it to include other vintage GUIs of 
the era like Deskmate.  But I don't want to see an end of GEM anymore 
than I want to throw away my TI-99/4a system.  It's a darn hobby, a fun 
and cheap hobby.  We do it as life permits as we do with any hobby.  I 
will NOT see it die.

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with the direction the group took 
recently with the "OpenGEM Distro" and such.  It may have been a useful 
thing, especially for the poorer areas of the world.  But it should not 
have become the whole and focus of all the GEM group and development.  I 
thank you Shane for the work you did.  I thank you all for the work you 
did.  I realize that other than my research and programming in LocoBasic 
and my efforts to run GEM on widely varied machines and op systems I 
probably contributed little.  But OpenGEM is not GEM any more than 
Redhat Linux is Linux.  When people say "I use Linux 9.0" even in the 
Redhat group they are reminded there is no Linux 9.0.  Linux is at 
Kernel 2.4.X stable.  So it is with GEM.

So go ahead, bring it on and send in the flames.  I've got my fire-proof 
suit on and a cigarette to light.  But GEM was my first GUI and it is 
the one thing I most remember from the early DOS days.  I will not 
forget it and I will not let it die until no machine on this planet can 
run it any longer.  JMHO...
-- 
Davey Brain
dsbrain at NOSPAM!neosplice.com or
dsbrain2001 at yahoo.NOSPAM!com

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth" - John F. 
Kennedy

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