Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!ssbell!dsndata!wayne From: wayne@dsndata.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: GNU Make 3.58 on HP-UX 7.0 ? Message-ID: Date: 29 Sep 90 21:13:40 GMT References: <1990Sep17.201337.15659@bpdsun1.uucp> <7370218@hpfcso.HP.COM> Sender: wayne@dsndata.UUCP Organization: Design Data Lines: 40 In-reply-to: mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM's message of 27 Sep 90 19:59:53 GMT In article <7370218@hpfcso.HP.COM> mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes: > > >How about some support for GNU products by HP? > > The GNU license agreement pretty much forbids us from providing any reasonable > kind of support. In particular, we could not sell any of it (only give it > away), so it would be hard to fund the support. the gnu license doesnt forbid you (or anyone else) from providing support. on the contrary, it, and the manifesto talk a great deal about support is one of the things that you should be able to charge money for. the only thing you cant do is make changes to the programs, distribute those programs and not provide other people with the source to those changes. you _can_ charge for distributing those changes though. > > Actually, no one has really managed to make sense out of Stallman's copyleft > from a legal standpoint; we are forced to assume the most restrictive > interpretation. lots of people have made sense out of stallman's copyleft. DG, Next, and surprisingly Apple all distribute gnu software in one form or another. > That, plus we have a significant investment in our products, and many customers > have an investment in some of our value added features like FPA support, > Fortran, etc. [ ... ] that, and paranoid lawyers are probably the real reason... actually, it really surprises me that HP doesnt distribute gnu products. the have given the FSF quite a few computers and a fair amount of money. it is obvious that hp people in fairly high places know about the FSF and support it. -wayne