Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb
From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: CM and GNU
Message-ID: <9009070011.AA16871@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 6 Sep 90 17:37:57 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 25

> > Chuck [Moore] objected to Unix on the grounds that he thought that he could
> > do a better job of writing many or all of the Unix utilities and drivers ..

> (I add in passing that the GNU project is doing just what CM suggested,
> though that is more a side effect of their real goal.)

One might presume that CM might object to using GNU, or indeed to using
anything written by someone else, on the same grounds.

Let me clarify my point: I have no objection to re-implementing a system
for various economic reasons (e.g. performance, maintainability, ownership
of code, portability, whatever).  The thing that I meant to consider was
whether to invent a new scheme or instead to adopt a proven scheme (which
would probably involve some amount of re-implementation for some of the
reasons previously stated.)

Note that the GNU project has mostly been doing just what I suggested
(re-implementing existing and familiar interfaces, not inventing new ones).
As I recall, in the GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman said something to the
effect that Unix isn't the greatest thing in the world, and he could
probably invent a better system, but Unix has the momentum so he's going
to implement it.  A compromise that succeeds has much greater value than
the "greatest thing in the world, but nobody uses it".

Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM