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dan@sri-tsc
From: dan@sri-...@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Three cheers for Lauren's reply to GNU
Message-ID: <12290@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Oct-83 18:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12290
Posted: Mon Oct 3 18:03:00 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Oct-83 07:09:25 EDT
Lines: 5
I agree with Lauren Weinstein's arguments against GNU. I also believe
that this is not the forum for such an argument, so I will say no more.
(I only send this note to show that he is not alone in his opinion).
-Dan
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From: r...@sbcs.UUCP (Rick Spanbauer)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Whats GNU with you?
Message-ID: <498@sbcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Oct-83 01:38:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: sbcs.498
Posted: Wed Oct 5 01:38:45 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Oct-83 03:11:33 EDT
Organization: SUNY at Stony Brook
Lines: 59
Sorry, Lauren, I for one agree with most of RMS's stated
principals. The commercialization of Unix is sure to cause
only trouble for those of us in the research community; I fully
expect that at some point in the future Unix sources will be
made unavailable to universities. The excuse will read something
like ".. We consider this material proprietary ....".
My personal feeling is that the commonly accepted principal
of free flow of scientific knowledge should apply in the
case of programs. We will all benefit in the long run if
projects can be accomplished by rewriting, modifying, or
cannablizing existing code (ie - a software equivalent to
the hardware hackers junkbox). For example, it is considerably
easier to modify an existing compiler to produce code for a new
target machine than it is to rewrite a new compiler.
I suggest that if businesspersons will always choose to pay for a
fully supported product, there is no loss of revenue in giving
software away free (well, at a nominal copying charge) to
programmers who request it, and letting some private company sell it
to businesses. The terms of the programmers license agreement
might be: no support, and that the product cannot be resold for
commercial gains. This way, we can continue our research, I can
hack in peace on my home Unix machine, programmers can eat, and
businesspersons can pay their $$ and have their hands held and
questions answered.
Your point of stabilizing programs so that unsophisticated
users may rely on them is well taken, but not to the extreme
that I cannot "do my own thing". Is it your view (to quote
a line from TWOK) "The needs of the many outweigh the needs
of the few" ??
Another motivation for obtaining sources (aside from adding
value to existing systems) is that many, many products are
released today without being fully debugged. The best response
time from bug report to bug fix that I have grown to expect is
roughly 2 months. While I am waiting for the company to fix
their $$%%&?! software, it costs me more time and effort to
work around the bug than it would to fix it!
If you feel these fears are irrational, I can relate the problems
I have had in (unsuccessfully) getting a prominent west coast
workstation manufacturer to release their sources. Or about the
semiconductor manufacturer who insisted that I pay $50K for
their UNIX port (they have since reduced the university price
to $1000 - fortunately there are some enlightened companies).
Or about the company who sold us a $10000 Pascal compiler that
we literally found 1 code generation bug/week over the course
of several months; they often took 3 months to repair the simplest
problem. Etc, etc, etc.
Convinced that copyrights, trademarks, patents, regulations
and so called "proprietary information" will be our ultimate
undoing,
Rick Spanbauer
SUNY/Stony Brook
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ut-sally!jsq
From: j...@ut-sally.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Three cheers for Lauren's reply to GNU
Message-ID: <120@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Oct-83 11:18:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.120
Posted: Sun Oct 9 11:18:45 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Oct-83 23:37:59 EDT
References: <12290@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 19
Lauren's arguments about software fragmentation don't really seem to have
been answered adequately by the GNU people. I support Lauren, so far.
Also, it's a bit hard to believe that anybody posting to net.unix-wizards
could not be aware that that newsgroup has been gatewayed to the UNIX-WIZARDS
mailing list on the ARPANET practically forever (forever being defined as
the beginning of USENET, as the ARPANET list existed long before that).
Just because an article was posted from USENET does not mean it doesn't
have to conform to ARPANET standards, not in net.unix-wizards. Posting
something that endangers the gateway because it clearly violates the standards
strikes me more as irresponsible than as a manifestation of high ethics.
(There are such things as paper mail and telephones where the GNU message
could have gotten out with no restrictions, regardless of money matters.)
It also seems a bit disingenious to open the discussion of GNU in unix-wizards
and then try to suppress it when GNU meets criticism.
--
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
{ihnp4,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq, jsq@ut-sally.{ARPA,UUCP}
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From: chesson%sha...@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: GNU comment
Message-ID: <12306@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Oct-83 00:07:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12306
Posted: Mon Oct 10 00:07:00 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Oct-83 07:08:03 EDT
Lines: 11
From: Greg Chesson <chesson@shasta>
Self-appointed GNURU's are just that, self-appointed.
REAL guru's may or may not eat quiche, are not self-appointed,
and don't need the help of the Arpanet, Lauren, or anyone else
to create.
RMS deserves a congratulation for doing what he does best:
getting everyone confused. I'm disappointed to learn that
GNU doesn't already exist as some emacs thunderclap.