ASIP - A little bit more history...

You may be asking yourself, "Self, why is there such anger swirled around ASIP and its users?" And that would be a very good question. In order to answer that, you probably need a bit more history...because you obviously haven't been involved with ASIP for the past two years or so! I'll try to be as accurate as possible, but I may flub the release dates of OS and ASIP updates---Apple doesn't always accurately track them--and might be mistaken as to what upgrades were for "pay" and which weren't. It all started around March of 2000, when a client of mine decided to make the step onto the internet. They were looking for file services, certainly, especially to help move files across the country between another site; but they were most interested in email. At the time they were using an aging QuickMail server that was having some "issues", so we started looking towards ASIP, considering they were mostly a Mac shop. The Windows sharing feature was also convenient. I had used ASIP before, but only as a file server, never as an email server. My experience had been with QuickMail, Sendmail, EIMS, AIMS, and SIMS. The reason for interest in the ASIP package for mail was threefold: no additional investment, a unified user database, and IMAP capability. Between the local Apple reseller and Apple Sales Support, we were assured that everything would work swimmingly (and don't doubt that I asked a LOT of questions!). We ordered and received AppleShare IP 6.3. Unfortunately, the most recent version was already 6.3.1 by the time we had received the shipment (we're at May 2000 here). Lucky me, I got to whine and plead with Apple to get an update--you see, they wanted an additional $19.95 S&H for the 6.3.1 Update, even though I had ordered ASIP after 6.3.1 had been announced and already paid shipping and handling ONCE! Hrmpf. Things started off badly. And to top it off, things weren't functioning swimmingly, thanks to a combination of crap OS releases, buggy AppleShare (specifically the Server Admin, IMHO), and misinformation from the Apple Sales tree. Finally we ponied up the bucks--basically at gunpoint--and got the update. Mac OS 9.0.4 rolled around in the same time frame, and quite luckily the client had taken my advice to ease into the transition. That gave us plenty of testing time, and, in fact, due to the general unstable nature of ASIP on 9.0.4 and poor documentation, the server sat unused for a very long while while I wrestled with getting it to the point of configuration that the client desired. In the course of six months I must have had ten open case numbers with Apple Tech...and it got even more ridiculous when they started asking for a credit card number to take what were basically bug reports. After several false starts, the server slipped into operation by fall...much later than we had intended. I was still having problems with getting the mail server properly configured (and retaining prefs) and with the remote admin daemon locking up. But things hobbled along. Finally (at least according to the KB) in December 2000, Apple released the Appleshare IP / 9.0.4 Updater. It was supposed to fix lock ups. Well, it didn't really, but at least Apple was implying that 9.0.4 was an okay system to run on. We struggled on. It is of interest to note that OS X shipped in March of 2001. Keep this in mind, as that fact can begin to explain some of Apple's upcoming irrational behavior. Also keep in mind that OS X Server also shipped soon thereafter, and---shudder---it sucked big time. Anyhow, we get to December 2000, a full eight months after 9.0.4 shipped, and Apple releases an update that is supposed to make life better for ASIP 6.3.1 users. Eight months. And this is the updater that is going to cause all this trouble later on! January 2001 brought the introduction of OS 9.1. All these great improvements: Open Transport enhancements and system stability. AppleShare IP 6.3.3 was announced to be available shortly. For a price. Apple decides that everyone needs to pay full price for it. There is massive backlash (and of course I'm leading the charge). Surgically extracting dollars this way was just plain stupid. What's even MORE stupid was that you NEEDED 6.3.3 to run 9.1. What a Catch-22. Well, eventually the crowd won out (you know, cuz Apple "listens" to feedback) and Apple offered ASIP 6.3.3 updates for "free"--meaning $19.95. But this didn't happen until well after January 2001 and a lot of bad publicity. The most interesting tidbit is that the file modification times for the files involved in the 6.3.3 installer are all dated to December 2000. That's right...it was readied for release for use on 9.0.4, but Apple held it until 9.1 shipped in January. And then they tied the two together and tried charging for it. A great way to make friends and speed adoption of a new OS! Plus, there's nothing like getting necessary updates out to your premium (read higher paying) customers quickly.

ASIP 6.3.3 and 9.1 made the most dramatic change yet. Things actually worked. The server stayed online without babysitting! The mail server still has security problems, isn't as configurable as Apple liked to market, and sometimes forgets its settings, the Server Admin still has a remote exploit that can lock up the machine, and the logs still over buffer the Admin program, but at least the thing doesn't need to be rebooted. All the while, Apple was being made aware--by way of their forums (where posts usually ended up deleted), the discussion list, my posts to Macintouch, and calls to Tech Support--of outstanding bugs and issues in AppleShare IP 6.3.3. Surely an update was in the works, right?

Mac OS 9.2.1 was released in August of 2001. 9.2.2 was released in December of 2001. Both were released, with little fanfare--remember OS X has shipped--as mere maintenance updates for the Quicksilver G4s, but early testing proved that to be fallacious (and thus spurred my efforts to back install it on my newly-legacied PowerMac 7600). I don't know for sure when the v1.2 and v1.3 updates shipped...but file modification stamps point to September and November of 2001. Oh, and I forgot to mention...somewhere in there Apple decided to "unofficially" End-Of-Life AppleShare without so much as a note of condolence on the AppleShare IP Discussion list. People started finding that they couldn't get the 6.3.3 update CD, instead being told to upgrade to OS X Server. To this day, Apple will NOT provide the disc, nor will they go on the record to say whether the update can be distributed by the community or not. Why? Cause that wouldn't push the adoption of OS X Server. Of course the apologists say that it is because of the cost...funny, the entire 70MB OS 9.1 update is still online. And those folks didn't pay nearly as much for their software as AppleShare IP customers did. Hmmmmm. As the Church Lady would say, "Isn't THAT special..." It was so horrendous that Apple eventually removed the links to the AppleShare IP page instead of changing the page to reflect that the product had been killed. To this day, that page STILL does NOT bother to mention that the product is defunct and unsupported.

Instead of treating this farewell like a loving kiss from an appreciative partner, Apple has instead dog-licked the AppleShare community's face after drinking from the toilet. I, for one, have been changed by my experience. I absolutely WILL NOT recommend OS X Server to any of my clients. Foremost, Apple has not done the requisite amount of work necessary to their crappy email server code to make it competitive with even FREE open source offerings. (Why don't you guys just give up and start to use and contribute to Courier?) Furthermore, most of the nice bells and whistles involved in OS X Server are derived from free as in speech, free as in beer, open source projects. I hardly feel it fair to reward Apple the price of OS X Server when so many others are more deserving of the compensation; perhaps I would feel different if Apple were indeed participating like true partners in the open source movement, however that still remains to be witnessed. Certainly they have NOT lived up to the spirit of sharing when it comes to getting QuickTime to Linux and releasing code to abandoned projects that would be helpful to the open source community. In the Darwin project, they continue with NIaN (Not Invented at NeXT) practices, even when far superior solutions are being developed within other external projects. Yep, Apple really showed a rotten core throughout my experience as a permium product customer, and they WILL be needing switchers who are more tolerant of crap software to fill up the hole in the market they've created by their idiotic customer service behavior. I sincerely hope they clean up their act for current and future XServe customers (again, action that remains to be witnessed), otherwise they'll simply continue to lose market share to Dell...and in this instance, the drop would be deserved.

-this page courtesy of Scott Boone

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