Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!mcsun!ukc!kl-cs!nott-cs!cat.fulcrum.bt.co.uk!masalla.fulcrum.bt.co.uk!igb From: igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Why I do not support GNU Message-ID: <383@masalla.fulcrum.bt.co.uk> Date: 24 Oct 89 11:27:48 GMT References: <8910160520.AA01740@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> <47006@bbn.COM> <4792@internal.Apple.COM> <1989Oct19.140255.834@odi.com> Reply-To: igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) Distribution: gnu Organization: BT Fulcrum, Birmingham, England Lines: 22 In article <1989Oct19.140255.834@odi.com> benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) writes: > >1) In The Real World, the apparent complexity of the copyleft coupled >with the unstable state of copyright law makes FSF software >practically unusuable for many companies, whatever their sentiments >about "free" software. So if you really want it to be usuable, >go public domain. Two points. (1) BT's SVR3.2 port is compiled with gcc 1.34. All of it. Every last thing. /bin/cc is gcc 1.34. (2) RMS doesn't want to be usable per se. He wants to produce GNU. If the software is usable on SV/4bsd/VMS that is fine. But the main aim is GNU. I may be wrong, but I don't think he cares if people use it. He wants to produce GNU. Therefore the argument ``GNU is un-usable by me because of the copyleft and therefore RMS should change it'' is a non-sequiteur. ian -- Ian G Batten, BT Fulcrum - igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk - ...!uunet!ukc!fulcrum!igb