Replying to a message of Roland Stiner to Darryl Gregorash:
 DG>> Nor are they required to; they probably bought nothing much
 DG>> more than the
 >> copyright/trademark to the name and the rights to the file
 >> formats, possibly also the original source to WP 6.x.
 DG>> WP 5.x was, if memory serves, the last product released by
 DG>> WPCorp. Novell
 >> probably bought the 6.0 upgrade, but it is doubtful they
 >> would have paid muc if anything, for the by then obsolete
 >> 5.x versions.
 RS> I don't know if everything has to go by what you are
 RS> "required" to do. There are some things that one ought to
 RS> do just because it is the right thing to do.
Look, let's be realistic. Between them, WPCorp and Novell managed to take the 
word processor with over 70 per cent of the worldwide installed base, and 
reduce it virtually to nothing. Corel has paid a great deal of money to say 
they have faith in it.
Corel *could* expend a great deal of time and money learning all of the code 
for previous versions of WP, and then support those versions. Where would 
that get them? It would get them support for a bunch of obsolete software 
packages for which there is less than zero possibility of revenue.
I'm sure that would be a very nice PR ploy; we could all be quite happy with 
patched WP 5.1/DOS, etc, all the while Corel runs down the road to bankruptcy 
keeping us happy. There is no point in supporting 5.1 or 5.2; they are dead 
ends. Support for 6.0 is of marginal value, because that was always broken. 
(Why do you think there are so many faithful 5.x users out there? You should 
have been in here when 6.0 was first released by WPCorp; it was one long 
litany of woe and terror.)
It makes far more sense for Corel to put all its effort into cleaning up the 
last public release of WP, then working on a new release, to get back into 
the marketplace with a product that can go somewhere, a product that is not a 
dead end, a product that, since it has a future, will gain them revenue to 
continue the process.
The alternative is 2 or 3 more years of obsolete and broken software that 
hardly anyone wants; that would surely be the road to no WP at all, if not 
the bankruptcy of Corel. What do you prefer to see?
--- FleetStreet 1.21 NR
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