Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!kodak!lance
From: lance@kodak.UUCP (Dan Lance)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Re: info-gcc is not a common carrier
Message-ID: <1910@kodak.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jun 89 17:09:35 GMT
References: <8905310246.AA00550@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> <9170@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: lance@kodak.UUCP (Dan Lance)
Distribution: gnu
Organization: Eastman Kodak Co, Rochester, NY
Lines: 50

In article <9170@boulder.Colorado.EDU> fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard) writes:
>My feelings on this are simple. I do not believe announcing a freely
>available port to a given workstation environment (A/UX) is either
>"hostile commercial activity" or "in support of monopolies on software",
>simply because the work was done by an Apple employee.

This is probably true enough.

>In fact, showing
>him hostility seems counter-productive to the goal of encouraging
>free software.

It certainly hurts Mac II users.  That's the whole point -- Apple conducts
business in an anti-social manner.  Its customers (and developers) *should*
be excluded from the free software community.  If those people want to
participate in the GNU project, they should vote with their wallets or
feet and buy from or work for other vendors who do business in a more
acceptable manner.

Of course, no one can prevent ports of GNU software to Apple platforms;
however, RMS is well within his rights in excluding Apple products from the
list of offically supported platforms, and refusing to put Apple support
code in his distributions.  More power to him.

>Remember that ALL computers and operating systems are
>are "proprietary platforms".

Bull-hockey.  Nowhere does the law say that a computer's architecture or OS
must be a proprietary product.  Most of today's available machines and OSes
are proprietary.  GNU will not be, and I hope someone will design a machine
using off-the-shelf parts and industry standards to run it -- and then
license the plans using a GNU-like license.  That way people can buy the
parts and build it themselves, making changes to the hardware if they so
desire.

>UNIX's "portability" is a myth that ranks
>right up there with Apple's "user-friendliness".

More bull-hockey.  Why can't you run VMS or VM/CMS or the Mac OS on your
Prime or Sequent or Cray?  Simple.  They were written for one architecture
and can't be ported without a complete rewrite.  It is much easier, though
not trivial, to port Un*x to a new architecture.

>========================================================================
>Richard Fozzard					"Serendipity empowers"
>University of Colorado			
>fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu                   (303)492-8136 or 444-3168

--drl
Daniel R. Lance / drl@kodak.com				"Stupidity cripples"