Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!bionet!ames!think!barmar
From: barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Objective Gnu?
Keywords: gnu,gcc,next
Message-ID: <29684@news.Think.COM>
Date: 19 Sep 89 19:33:55 GMT
References: <45768@bbn.COM> <124947@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 31

In article <124947@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> raburns@sun.UUCP (Randy Burns) writes:
>I had heard something to the effect that NeXT was going to make their
>Objective C compiler GNUware. Now this sounds really nice, but there
>still is a problem: the NeXT objective C compiler will still only run
>on NeXT machines (which have a highly proprietary design). It seems to me
>that this meets the letter of the law without really enhancing the 
>availability of standard GNUware particularly. 

Sounds to me like you completely misunderstand the GNU philosophy.  No
one is required to "enhance the availability of standard GNUware".
Stallman's belief is that software manufacturer's shouldn't keep their
products secret; object code should be freely distributable, and
source code should be available to anyone who wants it.  It has
nothing to do with the area of applicability of the program; the same
philosophy covers portable text editors and highly specialized
application programs.  Stallman has no legal way to force all software
manufacturers to abide by his philosophy, but he can require that any
derivative works of FSF software be covered by the copyleft.  It
sounds as thought NeXT is doing just that.  Why would they want to
spend the effort to write a generic Objective C compiler, when all
they need is an Objective C that works on their machine?  And since
Stallman presumably doesn't believe in licensing restrictions, how
could he conceivably condone a restriction that NeXT's compiler be
general purpose?


Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar