Hello everyone!
I have written to Kevin Miller, as was suggested. I wrote to the support email.
The email came through, but no one, least of all Kevin, ever responded to me.
I find this behavior very offensive and unfriendly to me
and to those who have supported for years (as they could) this company and its (hypocritical, at this point) philosophy.
There was a great man of the theater, in Italy, whose name was Gigi Proietti. He used to do a long sketch based on a guy, called
Toto, who was recognized by others
when he paid, while he was ignored
when he did not pay.
Here, Kevin treats us like Toto: we are a
big family who participate for great ideals when he asks the community for some one-time money to make "our" LiveCode
better and faster, when instead he is asked for an interest for the little ones in the community to whom he asks for money,
the community simply doesn't exist and doesn't even deserve an answer.
I would have expected from a company, say, a standard letter like: "thanks, you're great, but for now we're not interested", but instead nothing.
What I'm going to do now is to keep teaching with the LC Community Edition as long as it holds up (because it's not fair that Miller's
niet - or rather "ignorabimus" - should be at the expense of kids), and to help
OpenXTalks [openxtalk.org] as much as I can to free this language for teaching.
I would like to add that LiveCode's management suffers from a great political-strategic short-sightedness and, sincerely, I suggest to change their attitude, also considering the collapse of posts on the forum.
For the record, my letter was titled:
Kevin Miller can you help little Kevin Millers to become Kevin Miller?
and here it is:
Dear Kevin,
I am Mariasole and I am writing to you regarding my appeal published in the LiveCode forum.
I must say that it is very difficult for me to express myself in another language and I apologize in advance for the mistakes and for the poor language.
So don't ever think that what I say to you is harsh, but always full of joy and enthusiasm, even if with the strength and determination of a lioness who must preserve her cubs and that of the other lionesses (and lions with a heart of butter) who have lost hope.
For me, the battle is not lost. You're a good guy Kevin and you're sure to find out, even by maybe seeing "Back to the Future" again, that you can't betray who you were, because in the end, you also know that deep down, you're still the same. Maybe even better, right?
I am writing to you directly because I have been advised to do so, publicly and privately, by friends of the forum.
First of all I would like you to read (or re-read) my appeal [
https://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36671].
There is everything there, from possible proposals for economic sustainability, to the damage that unfortunately, this disappearance of LiveCode CE from schools, is doing to us teachers and especially to the brightest students [
https://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.p ... 71#p212175].
It's pointless to explain it all again, please read the post carefully, with an open mind and an open heart.
You'll read that I gave up your kind help in terms of "free licenses" for my little students (I think that was the help, in fact) because this is not the right way, in the opinion of me and my colleagues, to solve the problem of the enthusiasm we (we teachers and students) have for Livecode. And it's not the right way, even on a marketing level, humbly said (but it's vox populi) to close the LiveCode Community experience in the world of school and education!
So instead of closing "brutally" with the world of education (goodbye Community Edition and its community), or with the "furry charity", a picturesque Italian expression that I do not know how to translate into English (something like "interested charity" - that is, with free licenses -), it would be better to start with a reduced version of LiveCode to learn the basics.
We need a special edition of LiveCode for schools that is completely free and freely distributable, to teach kids how to bring out their art and identity on the essential medium that is the computer.
As you can reed I didn't write you "to learn LC", if LC was a nice development environment for Pyton or Java I wouldn't be writing you.
With LC and its language we teachers can not only teach computer science to our students, but to make the computer a medium for their creativity. As I wrote on the forum thread, "They program robots, they didn't become robots.".
After LC community was shut down, there is a need for this project.
Please think about it in honor of Hypercard, that, free as it was, allowed you to be what you are; do it also for the communication of your company that always describes you as a kid in front of your mac; do it for all those little Kevin Miller that dream with intensity of their future starting from a computer.
Every major company contributes charitable strategies to society, this educational app could be your contribution!
There is a whole host of teachers and students who will work for their and your future.
So, in summary, dear Kevin Miller can you help little Kevin Millers to become Kevin Miller?
Don't let us down!
Con amicizia e stima...
Mariasole
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Naively I had also recommended myself to Heather:
Dear Heather,
could you please forward this email to Kevin Miller? I thank you so much and, if you can, talk to him about our needs as well!
Un bacio e grazie,
Mariasole
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I mean, I was really hurt, but really hurt.
Or maybe it's because you can't understand what I'm saying in English...
Grazie amici del forum!
Mariasole
(='.'=)
Mariasole