🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <72@euteal.ele.tue.nl>, mart@ele (Mart van Stiphout) writes:
>... Fact is that
>a lot of the software delivered by computer vendors is so good
>that there is no need for me to rewrite it. ...
It is closer to the truth to say that you CANNOT rewrite it, it most
cases you won't get sources without paying rediculous amounts of mony.

During several years I was responsible for the administration and
operation of a large timesharing system with several hundred users.
(Made by a very well known vendor with a reputation, especially in the
computer science community - at least at the time - for making
high-quality hardware and software).

The bugs were innumerable. Often the bugs compromised system security
or were great obstacles to the users of certain programs. Since we
didn't have sources we hade to wait for the company to answer our bug
reports (which could take half a year, or so) or debug and patch the
binaries.  We often had to resort to the last alternative, unless our
friendly field service rep. gave us the sources illegaly (which he
quite often did, when we needed them).

From my experience as a user of different systems I have no reason to
believe that other vendors in general have better quality software.

>instance, no need for the gnu bourne shell remake, the diff remake, etc.
>If they are better, why doesn't Stallman sell it:
It is Stallmans express opinion that selling intellectual achievements
is immoral, haven't you read the real GNU manifesto? (I must say that
I sympathize strongly with him on this point)

>advantage 1: he gets more money for more people to make more remakes.
>advantage 2: every computer buyer and unix user who don't want to port
>the gnu stuff get better tools.
But you see, right now they can get better tools for free! As for the
question of support, it is Stallmans intention that support of GNU
could be offered by independent companies, just as many companies
offer hardware support for other manufacturers equipment. Sound
completely reasonable to me.
-- 
Lars-Henrik Eriksson				Internet: lhe@sics.se
Swedish Institute of Computer Science		Phone (intn'l): +46 8 752 15 09
Box 1263					Telefon (nat'l): 08 - 752 15 09
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