Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ncar!midway!gargoyle!chinet!laird From: laird@chinet.chi.il.us (Laird J. Heal) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: Gnu C Compiler for MPW Unchained! Message-ID: <1990Dec11.140812.1003@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 11 Dec 90 14:08:12 GMT References: <46962@apple.Apple.COM> <1990Dec5.202855.6434@eng.umd.edu> Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX Lines: 51 In article <1990Dec5.202855.6434@eng.umd.edu> russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes: >In article brianj@witsend.cs.umd.edu (Brian Johnson) writes: >> >>It bothers me to see FSF software on apple.com. It's like beating Ghandi with >>his own stick because you can. > >FSF would be trying to have it's cake and eat it too. You can't support the >principle that 'software should be free', and then object when someone else >takes your software and does something you don't like to it (like making >a version for the Evil Company Of The Year). You can't say that "Software >should be free, except for supporters of Evil Company", and expect to get >any recognition. > >To it's credit, FSF has not (to my knowledge) tried to stop porting of their >software to Apple machines, it has only withheld it's support. (and they >don't seem to have 'Support should be free' as part of their philosophy) I've sent the FSF people mail encouraging them to develop a "support is a part of our price" philosophy but their agenda is, purely and simply, that there should be no ownership rights in software. This is a bit extreme, at least from my vantage point of having used software writing to pay quite a few bills in the past few years. My point was that so many companies go out of business (or in Apple's case discontinue support) after a few years and leave their customers high and dry with either the option of reverse-engineering their hardware and software (which Apple's licensing agreements do not exactly encourage but recent court cases seem to be allowing) or of purchasing new systems from whichever vendor is still in business and willing to promise to provide support. Here, however I would like to note that the GNU Public License (which Apple is probably subscribing to - I have not bothered to ftp COPYING from the gcc distribution at apple) requires a vendor to make ALL source code available. Apple is saying that the binaries they are distributing require the sources for gcc to be compiled by the MPW C compiler. It would seem to me, then, that they are incorporating the MPW C compiler as a part of their port of gcc, and they should release the sources to MPW C as an integral part of the distribution. What are others' views on this? I'd like the sources, sure, not to compete but for that time, long from now, when Apple decides that Macintosh and especially MPW no longer fit in with their corporate business plans. FSF would like Apple to release the sources, per their agreement, scot free to whomever wants them. -- Laird J. Heal The Usenet is dead! Home: laird@slum.mv.com (Salem, NH) Long Live the Usenet! Away: laird@chinet.chi.il.us