I ordered a GRASS 5.0.2 CD from the OpenOSX website on 5/12/03.
I have been charged for this item, but have not recieved any goods.
E-mails to this company are unanswered, and phone calls to the owner's phone are hung up without acknowledgement.
Have other individuals on the GRASS list had recent successful purchases, or even contact from the OpenOSX organization ?
-john chesnut
Yes -- I've had the exact same problem, in about the same time frame. I
received an e-mail saying that the product had been shipped -- but
nothing arrived. I contacted OpenOSX by e-mail and belatedly got an
apologetic reply and promising that 'another' CD would be shipped. A
month later, still nothing. Buyers beware, I guess.
Stuart Edwards
John Chesnut wrote:
I ordered a GRASS 5.0.2 CD from the OpenOSX website on 5/12/03.
I have been charged for this item, but have not recieved any goods.E-mails to this company are unanswered, and phone calls to the
owner's phone are hung up without acknowledgement.Have other individuals on the GRASS list had recent successful
purchases, or even contact from the OpenOSX organization ?-john chesnut
There are contradictions between the OpenOSX and GRASS web sites.
- Quotes from OpenOSX (http://www.openosx.com/grass/index.html):
"limited installation support"
"We will no longer offer free technical support for installing and configuring GRASS..."
"Updates will be made available when practical..."
"... please consider our Six Month Subscription Plan"
- Quotes from GRASS (http://grass.itc.it/grass5/binary/mac_os_x/):
"Installation support for GRASS on Mac OS X shall be guaranteed to be provided only to OpenOSX GRASS customers."
"The fastest and easiest way to install a complete installation of GRASS on Mac OS X is accomplished with OpenOSX's GRASS 5.0.2 Product, which will eliminate ALL the instructions and downloads outlined on this page."
I recently installed GRASS on Mac OS X 10.2.5 without the OpenOSX CD. I installed Fink, Apple's X11, Tcl/Tk, and Fink Commander (for a GUI interface to Fink). Most of these installations involved double clicking on an icon. Unfortunately, I did not record my exact installation steps. The next major version of Mac OS X, Panther, will have X11 installed by default.
OpenOSX makes the following claim (which I believe is an exaggeration):
"Alternatively, you can download the binaries that we ported, compiled and published, download another hundred megabytes of files, follow countless pages of installation instructions and FAQ's (located at a multitude of different web sites), and hopefully you can "save" $50.00 and get GRASS running with a GUI."
Also note that the former Fink project leader alleged that OpenOSX did not give proper credit regarding the use of Fink with GIMP for Mac OS X and was possibly not complying with the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html):
http://fink.sourceforge.net/pr/openosx.php
Please keep in mind that OpenOSX has made contributions to GRASS GIS which resulted in GRASS being able to run on Mac OS X. Without them GRASS Mac OS X binaries might not be available.
At 10:23 AM -0400 7/5/03, Stu wrote:
Yes -- I've had the exact same problem, in about the same time frame. I
received an e-mail saying that the product had been shipped -- but
nothing arrived. I contacted OpenOSX by e-mail and belatedly got an
apologetic reply and promising that 'another' CD would be shipped. A
month later, still nothing. Buyers beware, I guess.
Stuart EdwardsJohn Chesnut wrote:
I ordered a GRASS 5.0.2 CD from the OpenOSX website on 5/12/03.
I have been charged for this item, but have not recieved any goods.E-mails to this company are unanswered, and phone calls to the
owner's phone are hung up without acknowledgement.Have other individuals on the GRASS list had recent successful
> purchases, or even contact from the OpenOSX organization ?
>
> -john chesnut
gis1212@comcast.net wrote:
Also note that the former Fink project leader alleged that OpenOSX
did not give proper credit regarding the use of Fink with GIMP for
Mac OS X and was possibly not complying with the GPL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html):
http://fink.sourceforge.net/pr/openosx.php
IIRC, there never was an actual claim of GPL violation; that was just
an inaccurate Slashdot headline. The main complaint seemed to be that
the Fink maintainer felt that he was entitled to an acknowledgement of
his efforts.
Please keep in mind that OpenOSX has made contributions to GRASS GIS
which resulted in GRASS being able to run on Mac OS X. Without them
GRASS Mac OS X binaries might not be available.
However, it would be nice if they made an effort to keep the GRASS
developers in the loop. The OpenOSX version of GRASS includes changes
which the GRASS developers were never told about. We only figured out
that changes had been made as a result of conversations with end users
on the mailing lists.
--
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements@virgin.net>
Somewhat to my surprise, OpenOSX suddenly came back to life and was very
accommodating. I actually have the products I ordered in hand and there
was a major concession on the price. Perhaps canceling the CC charge and
filing a complaint with the BBB were the stimuli that were needed.
Stuart Edwards
At 10:23 AM -0400 7/5/03, Stu wrote:
>Yes -- I've had the exact same problem, in about the same time frame. I
>received an e-mail saying that the product had been shipped -- but
>nothing arrived. I contacted OpenOSX by e-mail and belatedly got an
>apologetic reply and promising that 'another' CD would be shipped. A
>month later, still nothing. Buyers beware, I guess.
>Stuart Edwards
>
>John Chesnut wrote:
>
>> I ordered a GRASS 5.0.2 CD from the OpenOSX website on 5/12/03.
>> I have been charged for this item, but have not recieved any goods.
>>
>> E-mails to this company are unanswered, and phone calls to the
>> owner's phone are hung up without acknowledgement.
>>
>> Have other individuals on the GRASS list had recent successful
> > purchases, or even contact from the OpenOSX organization ?
> >
> > -john chesnut