Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!osiris.cso.uiuc.edu!goldfain From: goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Proclaim Glad Tidings! Message-ID: <8700017@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: Wed, 18-Nov-87 17:32:00 EST Article-I.D.: osiris.8700017 Posted: Wed Nov 18 17:32:00 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 11:38:48 EST Lines: 53 Nf-ID: #N:osiris.cso.uiuc.edu:8700017:000:3036 Nf-From: osiris.cso.uiuc.edu!goldfain Nov 18 16:32:00 1987 I wonder whether anyone officially connected to the Free Software Foundation would be willing to do advertisements in this forum? Specifically, I am very pleased with GNU Emacs and offer no end of praise for the FSFs intellectual accomplishment and high nobility of character for making such a beautiful work of art and also for making it available to the world. I occasionally see references to other packages that FSF has produced. I know they have a "C" compiler and some programs with names like JOVE and BISON, whose function I remain ignorant of. I also know they are working on an entire operating system roughly on a par with UNIX, which they intend to distribute for free as well. But I don't know what is available now, what is soon to be available, what state that is in, etc. What I am asking for is whether someone can regularly post a table of the following form: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PACKAGE NAME | One or Two | State of Completion | Plans | How to Get | Sentence | of the project now. | for | the software | Description | Beta / Final | future | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GNU Emacs | Customizable, | Version 18.47 Final | More X- | Methods 1,3 | Extensible, | Version 19.01 Alpha | support | 4, below | etc. Text | | soon | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GDB "C" | "C" Compiler | ??? | ??? | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ JOVE | ------------------------------------- BISON | ---------------- etc ... If such a person were to emerge, the world will be forever in their debt, for they will have helped alert the computer world of the existence of excellent tools, freely available, waiting to help them with their work. If the person had even more time, they could also keep a running account of other free software offerings that were available from other places, though I think that function is somewhat overlapping with other people's functions, such as the comp.sources.* groups. I would even be willing to make the postings, if the FSF insiders were to make some special effort to first teach me what they have and where they're headed, then to keep me informed of what they have and where it is. That is to say, I would summarize what they tell me. Thanks, Mark Goldfain arpa: goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu US Mail: Mark Goldfain (A lowly student at)--> Department of Computer Science University of Illinois at U-C 1304 West Springfield Avenue Urbana, Illinois 61801