Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: BISON, GCC, and the GNU public license. (Re: increasing yacc states) Summary: Some see it otherwise Message-ID: <1484@l.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 6 Aug 89 19:27:57 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <5524@ficc.uu.net> Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department Lines: 72 In article <5524@ficc.uu.net>, peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: > In article <26947@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes: < < I didn't < < mean that you had to be rich to distribute things built with < < commercial tools, but that you had to be rich to buy them. > > How much did your computer cost? About $2,000, I'd guess, would be average > for a personal computer. Less if you want to get a good one like an Amiga > instead of an IBM clone. But still, if you can afford that, you can afford > a few hundred dollars for a good C compiler, or a hundred or so for a Modula > compiler. As far as I can tell, there is NO good compiler! There is NO good language. I have discussed this in the appropriate newsgroups. It is easy to give examples of computation of mathematical functions for which the sources can be easily edited to do the job, but the binaries can not be. Even the binaries, disassembled, can be easily edited if the logic is known, and sometimes even if not. > If you want to run GNUCC, your computer is going to cost a lot more. You > can buy a lot of commercial software with the difference, and expect to > get help when something goes wrong. My university seems to think that GNUCC is among the better ones. < < In which case, they obviously have no problems whatsoever with the GNU < < copyleft. RMS doesn't choose to produce tools for these machines. That < < means they lose an option available to others. You think RMS should be < < forced to write for those people also? > > No, but he shouldn't use leftist arguments about how it's cheaper to use > GNU-cc than buy commercial software if he's not going to. > > And neither should you. > < < We keep going away from the central point, < < which is that there are _lots_ of ways to make money off of copylefted < < works. Unless you choose to talk about that point, I'm going to drop < < the thread too. > > I don't choose to talk about that point. It's irrelevant. I can make a > living digging ditches and come home and program, too, but that's also > irrelevant. > < < Final comment: you seem to care an awful lot about the licensing < < restrictions on software you don't use. > > Because I consider RMS' goals to be evil and rude, and unless someone > stands up and says so lots of people, like you, are going to go along > with him. The idea of living in the world RMS is trying to make frankly > scares me. I consider the non-source attitude of many commercial suppliers evil and rude. If I can make my program more efficient, and even easier to understand, by using hardware capabilities the language designers and compiler writers do not know of, I think that I am entitled to be very annoyed that the purveyors of software would so restrict me. At least Stallman will provide me with some information, which may or may not be useful. He does not misrepresent himself. But much of the commercial software is written to be difficult to modify. If they purveyors would even attempt to do something about fixing problems QUICKLY, the might have a point. But if a fix has to wait for the next release, if then, they do not. I no more expect to see really good software than I expect to see a computer which can outperform the best mathematicians in proving theorems, or if that is not to your liking, the best playwrights and the best painters. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)