Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!atari!apratt
From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: GNU (as it applies to the ST)
Message-ID: <2789@atari.UUCP>
Date: 26 Dec 90 19:12:58 GMT
References: <37142@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 46

Yonderboy@cup.portal.com (Christopher Lee Russell) writes:

>I have read a little about GNU.  I thought that GNU was suppose to be an
>alternative to UNIX that was being developed to be free.  Anyways, I have seen
>alot of stuff on atari.archive and panarthea that say GNU-this and GNU-that..
>What exactly does this mean?  Is there a versio of GNU running on the ST?

The things which are widely available for the ST from the Free Software
Foundation (aka the GNU people) are the compiler and some related utilities.
GNU itself is, as you say, a UNIX-workalike OS, but anything from FSF
is called "GNU this" and "GNU that" -- GCC is the GNU C Compiler, GNU Make
is (obviously) make, GNUUCP is UUCP from FSF.  And then there are tools that
do NOT have GNU (or even G) in their names: Bison is a yacc replacement;
flex is a lex replacement (which may not be from FSF at all).

All FSF software is covered by something called "copyleft" -- it's a
copyright, and some terms under which you can use and distribute the
tools.  It is stated in a file called COPYING when you get most anything
of theirs.  Briefly, it states that you are allowed to use it, and you're
allowed to give it away, and you can't deny anybody else's right to use
it or give it away.  It also covers the source code: if you give away
FSF stuff, you have to give away the source, too, or hold it available,
or let the person you give it to know where you got the sources, so s/he
can get them from there, too.  This is a simplification, but it should convey
the general idea.

The chief confusion I have run into about copyleft is what's covered. 
The compiler and tools are covered.  Programs you write using the
compiler are not: you can charge money for them, hoard the source code,
etc. This is limited by the status of any library you link with, but on
the ST the libraries are explicitly PD. Bison is a special case,
because a parser generated by Bison contains FSF source code which GCC
in turn compiles.  Therefore the parser, and any program containing it,
contains FSF source code and therefore is covered by the copyleft.

>Anyboy in Net-land using Minix on there ST?  I read an article in BYTE mag.
>about it and it sounds really good.  Does the St version do all of the stuff
>that the IBM version does (for example does the ST version come with a C
>compiler, etc)    ......Yonderboy@cup.portal.com

Yes, lots of people use Minix.  Try bammi@cadence.com,
ersmith@uwovax.uwo.ca, and comp.os.minix.  I don't happen to use Minix.

============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt