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From: chase@Ozona.orc.olivetti.com (David Chase)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Re: GNU's not GNU...
Message-ID: <39924@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 28 Mar 89 18:48:41 GMT
References: <27674@apple.Apple.COM> <6396@cbmvax.UUCP> <878@itivax.iti.org> <2963@kalliope.rice.edu>
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Reply-To: chase@Ozona.UUCP (David Chase)
Organization: very little
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Stallman can do what he wants with the software, since he is the
copyright holder, but ...

In article <2963@kalliope.rice.edu> dboyes@titan.rice.edu (David Boyes) writes:
>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, 

"Superior software" is a matter of taste.  I'd take the Mac IIx in a
flash, and run the real (non-Unix) Macintosh code.  What Apple wants
to protect is those things that make that my choice -- clearly, this
is something of value, and worth money to them.  In this case, what
matters is precisely the "look and feel".  There isn't too much other
software in this world that I like because of its "look and feel", and
other windowing software has an inferior "look and feel".  It's pretty
nebulous, but it's what makes the Mac software special, and I can
understand Apple trying to protect it.  I think the "look and feel"
argument has merit in this case, though I can easily imagine creative
legal types using it in meritless situations ("they both read standard
input, write to standard output, use command line flags, and compile C
to assembly code; therefore, same look and feel!").

>It hasn't killed Sun to make NFS available to the world.

This is a separate issue -- if you plan to sell anything with an 'N'
(for "Network") in it, then you had better hope that it is widely
used.  Sun would have been stupid to do anything else.  Ditto for the
X Window System -- it's supposed to work transparently over a network,
and so if it is to fly at all it must be easy for vendors to get their
hands on it.

>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.

On the contrary, the code is fine.  Apple just wants to make (lots of)
money on their investment and cleverness.  If anything, the Macintosh
is an example that non-free software (and the expectation of profits)
can lead to interesting things.  This doesn't mean that the Free
Software approach is without merit, but so far what I have seen from
them has been only "better than Unix"; none of it is anything like
what I really *want* in a personal computer or workstation.  The
ball's in their court; they can certainly try to come up with
something having look and feel superior to the Macintosh's.  When they
get it, then the FSF can defend the uniqueness of *their* look and
feel, and require that any software using it be Free.  It's a
two-edged sword (just like copyright protection).

David