The reply of ETJ, when I asked if they had a "Letters to the Editor" section:
On 2017-01-26 01:31, Denny Yost wrote:
> Since you are the owner of software/hardware/services company in the IT
> industry, you can submit article for publication once you have signed an
> annual promotion contract with us for at least US$6,000 which gives you the
> right to guaranteed publication of up to 6 articles meeting our Writer’s
> Guidelines.
>
> Our rule is that any “vendor person” can submit articles that meet our
> Writer’s Guidelines and receive guaranteed publication provided they have
> such a promotion contract in place with us. If a vendor wants to submit more
> than 6 articles, the next level is a $12,000 contract giving you the ability
> to submit up to 12 articles per year.
>
> Of course, both of the above contract levels also provide you with the
> ability to advertise with a full-page, four-color ad that same number of
> times in one or both of our globally distributed magazines at no additional
> cost.
>
> We would very much like to publish your articles and promote your products!
You've got to be kidding? I have to pay? This would make ETJ nothing more than
vanity publisher...
I'm an unemployed application programmer, who's rather a bit more clever than
most application programmers, but whose knowledge is way below that of real
systems-programmers. I happen to still have access to a Canada-based publicly
accessible z/OS 1.6 system and a somewhat more up-to-date z/OS 1.10 one at home,
but who doesn't realistically expect to ever work again, the demand for nearly
57-year old z/OS PL/I programmers, even with 31+ years of experience, and quite
a number of RFE's that turned into actual E's, is not particularly large. (Why
not learn Java or whatever is in vogue right now? So that I can apply for jobs
that tell me that "you will join a young and dynamic team", the phrase that
nowadays replaces the illegal "must not be over 30 (or even 25)"...)
My wife and I have been getting by on the, admittedly reasonably generous,
unemployment benefits provided by the Belgian state, but your "promotion"
contract would gobble up a way too large percentage of our annual budget, for no
discernible benefit: the, in general, small tools that I still write, mostly
because *I* "need" them to make my life easier, are all covered by the GPL V3,
so they are free, both as "in freedom" as well as "in beer"!
Distributing them under the GPL also means that, other than a moral obligation
to correct bugs, which I do take seriously, I can "happily" fall under a bus
tomorrow knowing that:
"This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details."
I'm not in it for the money, I'm in it because I like to give something back to
a community that still shares. (And for me real sharing is the kind of sharing
that has nothing to do with the so-called "sharing economy" models of Uber,
AirBnB, etc, where the 0.001% share in 99.999% of the benefits!)
Regards,
Robert
--
Robert AH Prins
robert.ah.prins(a)gmail.com
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