Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!smoke.cs.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!moraes Newsgroups: comp.windows.x From: moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes) Subject: Re: Xview vs. Motif speculation Message-ID: <90Apr8.221709edt.3362@smoke.cs.toronto.edu> Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto References: <775@med.Stanford.EDU> <1990Mar28.023719.13505@athena.mit.edu> <1600@riscy.dec.com> Date: 9 Apr 90 02:17:28 GMT Lines: 39 graham@fuel.dec.com (kris graham) writes: >I don't know what you mean by 'free'...but very soon, >some companies will make Motif the default >environment when you purchase their computers. Nope. That is not how some of us define 'free'. Sun has been shipping suntools as the default environment for Suns for years. We've never called that free, now, have we? I haven't seen people getting up and saying that DECWindows is free, even though DEC has been shipping it as the default environment for their Ultrix workstations. Anyone seen SGI claiming that their 4Sight/NeWS is free because they ship it as the default environment for their machines? How about SunOS? Ultrix? Irix? etc. (all come as default environments) But then, some of us feel really unhappy without source code to the things we run; something to do with the fact that we don't like the phrase "fixed in the next release" that we seem to often get from vendor hotlines. 'free' in our context means -- free to use && free to port && free to fix && free to enhance && free to experiment with && free to develop from &&"free to redistribute'. So we can write spiffy code ourselves that does the things we want to do; so we can take code from existing applications and use it as a base for further development, so we can share programs/fixes with our colleagues at other Universities when they want to collaborate on or use the stuff we do i.e freedom from proprietary vendor systems -- freedom to buy new, different hardware should our present vendor decide they don't really think they they can provide new generation hardware at prices we can afford, or provide working operating systems, or compliance with new standards or... Obviously, these may not necessarily be vendor definitions of 'free'. We often see interesting reactions when we ask sales reps "and how much is a source license?". To us, 'free' does not mean "We don't charge you extra for it, it's bundled with the system". Mark.