Corporate Use of Mosaic

Jonathan_Roberts@transarc.com
Wed, 16 Feb 1994 23:31:50 --100


My company is actively seeking a tool to use as a hypertext interface
for browsing our documents. On the side I have converted a small
number of our SGML docs (from Publisher) to HTML as a "proof of
technology". This conversion is now automatic and I think Transarc
would benefit greatly from this time savings.

Transarc, however, currently favors a product called OpenView (I
think). This support stems from the fact that OpenView is supported
by a corporation with a professional reputation to uphold. They fear
being left in the lurch if NCSA should someday stop supporting Mosaic.
My opinion is that we would get a fix from the Mosaic community more
quickly than we would from the OpenView folks, and if we cannot get a
fix from outside we at least have the chance to fix it ourselves.

Specifically, I need answers to the following questions:

- Is there a royalty fee for redistributing Mosaic when it is
packaged with lots of our own stuff (e.g. docs and programs
on a CDROM)?

- What sort of support can be expected?

- Are there other corporations which depend on Mosaic for their
hypertext needs? If so, what are their experiences?

I know, the source is available and we could fix any defect we found.
I agree, but this is seen as a bad solution by the PTB.

My take is "Hundreds of thousands of people use it daily and it has
become a fairly robust application with powerful features. It's free.
It will further empower our customers in a way unavailable with
commercial solutions. Let's use it."

Jonathan