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dan@sri-tsc
From: dan@sri-...@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Three cheers for Lauren's reply to GNU
Message-ID: <12290@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Oct-83 18:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12290
Posted: Mon Oct 3 18:03:00 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Oct-83 07:09:25 EDT
Lines: 5
I agree with Lauren Weinstein's arguments against GNU. I also believe
that this is not the forum for such an argument, so I will say no more.
(I only send this note to show that he is not alone in his opinion).
-Dan
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From: r...@sbcs.UUCP (Rick Spanbauer)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Whats GNU with you?
Message-ID: <498@sbcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Oct-83 01:38:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: sbcs.498
Posted: Wed Oct 5 01:38:45 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Oct-83 03:11:33 EDT
Organization: SUNY at Stony Brook
Lines: 59
Sorry, Lauren, I for one agree with most of RMS's stated
principals. The commercialization of Unix is sure to cause
only trouble for those of us in the research community; I fully
expect that at some point in the future Unix sources will be
made unavailable to universities. The excuse will read something
like ".. We consider this material proprietary ....".
My personal feeling is that the commonly accepted principal
of free flow of scientific knowledge should apply in the
case of programs. We will all benefit in the long run if
projects can be accomplished by rewriting, modifying, or
cannablizing existing code (ie - a software equivalent to
the hardware hackers junkbox). For example, it is considerably
easier to modify an existing compiler to produce code for a new
target machine than it is to rewrite a new compiler.
I suggest that if businesspersons will always choose to pay for a
fully supported product, there is no loss of revenue in giving
software away free (well, at a nominal copying charge) to
programmers who request it, and letting some private company sell it
to businesses. The terms of the programmers license agreement
might be: no support, and that the product cannot be resold for
commercial gains. This way, we can continue our research, I can
hack in peace on my home Unix machine, programmers can eat, and
businesspersons can pay their $$ and have their hands held and
questions answered.
Your point of stabilizing programs so that unsophisticated
users may rely on them is well taken, but not to the extreme
that I cannot "do my own thing". Is it your view (to quote
a line from TWOK) "The needs of the many outweigh the needs
of the few" ??
Another motivation for obtaining sources (aside from adding
value to existing systems) is that many, many products are
released today without being fully debugged. The best response
time from bug report to bug fix that I have grown to expect is
roughly 2 months. While I am waiting for the company to fix
their $$%%&?! software, it costs me more time and effort to
work around the bug than it would to fix it!
If you feel these fears are irrational, I can relate the problems
I have had in (unsuccessfully) getting a prominent west coast
workstation manufacturer to release their sources. Or about the
semiconductor manufacturer who insisted that I pay $50K for
their UNIX port (they have since reduced the university price
to $1000 - fortunately there are some enlightened companies).
Or about the company who sold us a $10000 Pascal compiler that
we literally found 1 code generation bug/week over the course
of several months; they often took 3 months to repair the simplest
problem. Etc, etc, etc.
Convinced that copyrights, trademarks, patents, regulations
and so called "proprietary information" will be our ultimate
undoing,
Rick Spanbauer
SUNY/Stony Brook
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From: bstemple...@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: GNU considered harmful to software quality
Message-ID: <5919@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Oct-83 02:27:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.5919
Posted: Fri Oct 7 02:27:48 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Oct-83 09:17:45 EDT
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 71
A recent proposal by RMS@MIT-OZ suggests a public domain Unix type
operating system. This idea could be the most dangerous thing to
the world of software, and could result in tremendous setbacks in
the advancement of software quality. The most dangerous element is
contained in this quote, which I feel is not out of context.
"Without a proprietary operating system,
how can my company get a competitive edge?"
GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of
competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but
neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you. You
and they will compete in other areas, while benefitting mutually in
this one. If your business is selling an operating system, you will
not like GNU, but that's tough on you. If your business is something
else, GNU can save you from being pushed into the expensive business
of selling operating systems.
It is because of the aspect of mutual benefit that I am asking many
manufacturers to donate, reducing the cost to each.
Scenario: GNU has attained success, and is now widely used all over
the place. Free operating system for everybody.
Programmer: "I have this great idea for a really wondeful operating system.
It's much better than GNU." (Let's assume he speaks the truth)
Other: But everybody can get GNU for free. Nobody would be willing to pay
for it.
Programmer: But it really is that much better - hey, venture capitalist,
what do you think?
Venture-Capitalist: Looks really good, but that market is too tough. Even
a really good product can't compete with something free. Sure we would sell
some, but not nearly as many as we would if there were a real competitive
market. You would be much better off working on something else.
Programmer: But I want to do this!
Other: Why not do it for free then, like GNU?
Programmer: What would I eat? Besides, I really believe that's right.
But I'll try. Rich-man, can you fund me while I do this free project?
Rich-man: Seems nice, but what's the point. We already have GNU. People
are satisfied with it.
---------------------
And so, nothing new ever comes along, unless there is a really big jump
or another group of "software socialists" better at design than the first.
This is NOT idle speculation. It is from bitter experience. I make most
of my money from a set of programmer's utilities for Commodore machines.
There is a similar product in the public domain. It is not as good, and
arrived after, but it hurts my income a lot. So much so that I have
seriously considered abandoning the whole market and doing something else.
One free medium quality program (and I am not saying GNU will be thus, simply
that if the state of the art advances, it will become thus) ruins the chances
of several high quality programs. I ask all people interested in GNU
to consider this, and to question if they wish to risk destroying the work
of everybody else working in operating systems.
GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of
competition.
Is this what we really want?????????????
--
Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
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Path: utzoo!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale
From: dmmartind...@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: GNU considered harmful to software quality
Message-ID: <936@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Oct-83 15:07:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.936
Posted: Fri Oct 7 15:07:27 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Oct-83 00:44:57 EDT
References: <5919@watmath.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 19
Now wait a minute. This is like saying that UNIX (which has always been
cheap for educational institutions) has had a detrimental effect on the
quality of software available to universities. It is quite possible that
it made it uneconomic for someone else to develop a competing product
in that market. On the other hand, the availability of a good operating
system which ran on cheap hardware at a low price probably fostered the
development of a large quantity of other useful software. Besides,
what makes you think that a small group of dedicated, expert hackers
can't produce a public-domain system which is better than what most
commercial firms would come up with anyway?
Having public-domain software available is bad for potential producers
of competitive software, but good for software "consumers".
I don't think it is at all clear which route produces the greatest
"overall good".
Dave Martindale
decvax!watmath!dmmartindale
allegra!watcgl!dmmartindale
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Path: utzoo!watmath!bstempleton
From: bstemple...@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: GNU considered harmful to software quality
Message-ID: <5924@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Oct-83 23:54:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.5924
Posted: Fri Oct 7 23:54:28 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Oct-83 00:55:06 EDT
References: <936@watcgl.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 12
Let's make one thing clear. I myself don't think that GNU or any
other product like it could take over the market entirely. Far from it,
people will always be willing to pay for a better, supported system even
when there is a free one around. What I object to is the philosophy
behind the GNU statements. If the GNU project changed its aims, I
would view it in an entirely different light. RMS contends that the
current capitalist market for software does more harm than good, and
he wants to destroy it with GNU. I suggest this is one man's belief and
that he should not try and destroy the system that others view differently.
--
Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
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ut-sally!jsq
From: j...@ut-sally.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Three cheers for Lauren's reply to GNU
Message-ID: <120@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Oct-83 11:18:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.120
Posted: Sun Oct 9 11:18:45 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Oct-83 23:37:59 EDT
References: <12290@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 19
Lauren's arguments about software fragmentation don't really seem to have
been answered adequately by the GNU people. I support Lauren, so far.
Also, it's a bit hard to believe that anybody posting to net.unix-wizards
could not be aware that that newsgroup has been gatewayed to the UNIX-WIZARDS
mailing list on the ARPANET practically forever (forever being defined as
the beginning of USENET, as the ARPANET list existed long before that).
Just because an article was posted from USENET does not mean it doesn't
have to conform to ARPANET standards, not in net.unix-wizards. Posting
something that endangers the gateway because it clearly violates the standards
strikes me more as irresponsible than as a manifestation of high ethics.
(There are such things as paper mail and telephones where the GNU message
could have gotten out with no restrictions, regardless of money matters.)
It also seems a bit disingenious to open the discussion of GNU in unix-wizards
and then try to suppress it when GNU meets criticism.
--
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
{ihnp4,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq, jsq@ut-sally.{ARPA,UUCP}
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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!ucbcad!notes
From: no...@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Re: GNU considered harmful to softwa - (nf)
Message-ID: <390@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Oct-83 22:11:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.390
Posted: Sun Oct 9 22:11:38 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Oct-83 06:39:11 EDT
Sender: no...@ucbcad.UUCP
Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group
Lines: 38
#R:watmath:-592400:ucbesvax:16700002:000:2015
ucbesvax!turner Oct 9 15:29:00 1983
Since it looks like we're getting into the more religious aspects of this
argument, I feel compelled to add a few points of my own:
- Brad doesn't like to compete with public domain software. Understood.
From a marketing point of view, however, public domain software is
just a product marked "$0.00". It has a price, like any other. Zero.
You can't PAY people to take your software, so the only way to undersell
public domain is to do a much better job. Golly, Brad: looks like you'll
have to do a much better job. Isn't that what capitalism is about?
- A friend of mine took a z80 C compiler out of the public domain. In
terms of features supported, it sucked. It was structurally sound,
however, so he was able to modify it and pass it on a >$0.00 price.
This was good, because he was broke. Public domain software gave him
some valuable experience, and much-needed money. C got spread around
a little more, and the resulting mobility gave some smaller companies
a bit more leverage. Now, of course, they are busy killing each other
off (again, good capitalism), but with better products than they might
otherwise have had. So what's wrong with that?
- Is software a product or a service? From the point of view of measuring
units sold, it's a product. But that's a simplistic rendering of the
market--viewing it as a service is closer to home, from the perspective
of the average programmer. When I get a non-trivial piece of software,
I want *support*--and I'll pay for that. It doesn't matter whether
my UN*X cost $0.00 dollars or $500.00--I'm gonna need bug fixes.
And that's what pays the average programmer's salary: supporting code.
Money saved by getting generic UN*X will almost certainly be spent
(over a longer period of time) on support and enhancements. Nobody
gets rich quick, but maybe more people get a chance to make their
ideas fly. Again, that's good capitalism.
See you in net.flame,
Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)
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From: chesson%sha...@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: GNU comment
Message-ID: <12306@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Oct-83 00:07:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12306
Posted: Mon Oct 10 00:07:00 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Oct-83 07:08:03 EDT
Lines: 11
From: Greg Chesson <chesson@shasta>
Self-appointed GNURU's are just that, self-appointed.
REAL guru's may or may not eat quiche, are not self-appointed,
and don't need the help of the Arpanet, Lauren, or anyone else
to create.
RMS deserves a congratulation for doing what he does best:
getting everyone confused. I'm disappointed to learn that
GNU doesn't already exist as some emacs thunderclap.
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