Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!rice!titan!dboyes From: dboyes@titan.rice.edu (David Boyes) Newsgroups: gnu.gcc Subject: Re: GNU's not GNU... Message-ID: <2963@kalliope.rice.edu> Date: 28 Mar 89 07:02:57 GMT References: <27674@apple.Apple.COM> <6396@cbmvax.UUCP> <878@itivax.iti.org> Sender: usenet@rice.edu Reply-To: dboyes@titan.rice.edu (David Boyes) Organization: Rice University, Houston Lines: 73 In article <878@itivax.iti.org> scs@vax3.iti.org (Steve Simmons) writes: > >Apple has P-Oed rms, and in response he's refused to put AUX stuff into >FSF software. I think this policy is misguided at best, and at worst is >counter to the expressed philosophy of FSF as I understand it. How? Apple has consistently acted in a fashion counter to the goals and ideals behind the GNU project. Why should RMS waste blodd and sweat over something that he has little or no control over and no indications that any changes are in the works? >If FSF wants to change Apples way of doing things, the *best* possible >way is to make Apple dependant on free software. I disagree. It didn't make any difference with the Apple II, because the Apple II was a totally open machine. People wrote neat things with it because they could look at how things were done and share that. The "new" post-Woz Apple has gotten awfully uppity -- especially about ideas they borrowed from others. > The *worst* possible >way is to make free software completely irrelevant to them. Not if all your competitors can supply superior software at low cost because they chose to be more sensible on corporate policy. Given the choice of a something like a Sun 3/50 or a DECstation 3100 or a Mac IIx running A/UX, I'm going to take the Sun or the DEC box because I can get superior versions of the C compiler and GNU Emacs for nothing. When the GNU kernel arrives, I'm going to buy something that can run it. I find Apple's attitude about source and this whole stupid "look and feel" thing unacceptable, and I refuse to allow them to get away with the kind of nonsense they're trying to pull. > The current >policy penalizes all those Apple employees who might otherwise be a voice >for FSF. Or galvanizes them to get up and demand that Apple act like a corporate adult and act for the good of the industry. It hasn't killed Sun to make NFS available to the world. If the Mac windowing system can't stand up to a little competition, than it's the Mac that needs to be improved. Squashing competition isn't going to fix the code. > DEC, IBM, and others regularly sue >over 'intellectual property' rights. What makes Apple particularly evil? Because DEC and IBM sue over substantial duplication of code or concept stemming from exposure to a product, not some nebulous appearance-oriented concept like "look and feel". If Apple's reasoning is correct, they (Apple) owe the workstation design group at Xerox PARC an abolutely staggering amount of royalty money. > Its content should be determined by those >willing to do the work, not by the political opinions of Stallman. It's Stallman's dream. He can run his show any way he wants to. Apple is perfectly free to start their own GNU-wannabe organization, but Stallman certainly doesn't have to support their legal machinations or their corporate policies. > Steve Simmons > scs@vax3.iti.org David Boyes / VM & Unix Systems Support / Rice University - ICSA dboyes@icsa.rice.edu (Internet) DBOYES@RICE (BITNET) | Historian [biggies]!rice!dboyes (UUCP) 713-527-4852 | At Large.. NOTE: Rice University doesn't always agree with everything I say.