🚀 go-pugleaf

I've purposely munged the Followups-To: line.  It will not work.
Follow up to the appropriate groups.

That being said...

"marca" == Marc Andreessen <marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu> writes:

marca> with standard system-level software, particularly to do
marca> scientific computing -- is virtually entirely satisfied with
marca> our choice of GUI *and* with our software (as, btw, is the

Have you asked anyone?  What's this based on?

You see, I've worked in lots of places where we (the workers) were
told what to use, and our boses told the vendors we were happy.
(Having to use WordPerfect because that's what NIH told us to comes to
mind.)

Point being, here at NAS, we use what we want.  Lots of us use
twm/tvtwm.  Some use 4dwm.  There's a couple of poor souls that use
gwm.

marca> National Science Foundation itself; c.f. the head of NSF's

That doesn't mean it's right.  Just means someone on high likes you.

marca> taxpayer: 100,000 satisfied target users served, and climbing.

Again, I haven't seen a poll on this. 

marca> just because we may be funded with public money.  The DMV,
marca> though funded with public money, is not obligated to grant you
marca> a driver's license; a police officer, though funded with public
marca> money, is not obligated to let you off the hook when you're
marca> going 95 MPH; the Supreme Court, though funded with public
marca> money, is not obligated to find in your favor in a given case.

No, but software created with public funds belongs to the public.
It's not a matter of opinion.  It doesn't mean you have to write the
code the public wants.  But it means you have to give out source (or
sell it at reasonable cost, see NASA's COSMIC program).

You're right that this is a silly discussion.  You don't like Mosaic?
Fine, go write your own web client.  Or, as the Big Boys used to say,
"Go start YOUR own band!"

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J. Eric Townsend jet@nas.nasa.gov 415.604.4311| personal email goes to: 
CM-5 Administrator, Parallel Systems Support  |   jet@well.sf.ca.us
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