🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bt8A6G.JuI@world.std.com> gsk@world.std.com (Geoffrey S  
Knauth) writes:
> Would you like to see free objects, libraries, palettes, toolkits,
> etc., from the Free Software Foundation?
> 
> 
> I think we can appreciate what a free object world might be like, with
> its advantages and drawbacks, if we can imagine it is 1989 again, and
> we see NeXTstep's source code on every NeXT computer (rms would
> probably say, "any computer.")
> 

This sounds like a very good idea.

Back before I decided to publish Mesa through Athena Design, I spoke with  
a number of publishers including folks who currently sell objects in the  
NeXT marketplace.  At that time, I was giving away the source to Mesa's  
ToolBar (you know, the thing that lets you pull off menu items and place  
these commands on a button in a separate panel or even in the worksheet  
window itself.)  They told me I was crazy and should charge for this.  My  
response was simple.

We all live in the same virtual city.  We need to attract a population to  
our city to create a thriving metropolis.  One way to attract people is to  
build beautiful buildings (great applications.)  NeXT provides great  
cement and a bedrock on which we can build these buildings (the AppKit and  
mach, respectively.)  I don't mind sharing my bricks with other builders  
so that these builders can also build beautiful buildings.  The more great  
buildings we have, the more people will come to our city.  The more people  
in the city, the better the economy, for everybody.

To this end, I will donate the drag and drop font system, the ToolBar  
system, the Mesa Object Library Interface, and I'll even think about  
donating the dynamic PS wrap generator (yes, version 1.1 of Mesa only  
makes one window server call to display an entire worksheet.  It caches  
all the PostScript commands for re-drawing, binary encodes them, and sends  
them to the window server in one chunk.)  If anyone sees other parts of  
Mesa that would be good to add to this collection, please forward the  
suggestion to me at dpp@athena.com.

We live in the best city in the computer world.  Let's get together,  
share, and build the most beautiful buildings anywhere.

David
-- 
David Pollak - dpp@athena.com - NeXTMail Compliant
Attorney at Law,
Feeder of the Bears, Athena Design, Inc.