🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1ijsrmINN8jr@shelley.u.washington.edu> tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:

[...discussion about porting emacs to Windows via a proprietary DLL...]

Ultimately, it might take a lawyer to answer this question.  Noah's
objections notwithstanding, I don't see much difference between 
Tim's scenario and someone who ports emacs to yet another not-free
operating system.  The DLL + Windows + DOS taken as a whole provides 
a sort of not-free, but more-emacs-friendly-than-Windows operating
system to which emacs could be ported with minimal, source-included
changes.

If Tim doesn't bundle emacs sources or binaries in his distribution,
nobody can sue him for doing what he's proposed.  I think that he
might find that potential customers looking for gnu emacs would dislike
the fact that he did not plan to follow the *tradition* of distributing
software with source - and so he might have difficulty getting customers.

Practically, I've seen a few examples similar to his scenario.
Nisus Software used gnu grep in its latest release of a proprietary
text editor.  Basically they defined some call-backs and released
the interface code needed to implement them, along with the source
for gnu grep modified to be invokable in that way.  No problem --
and users benefit because they now have the information needed
to port other tools for use with the editor.

What Tim proposes is the reverse, with the large work, emacs, 
modified to interact with Windows via a smaller work, the DLL 
interface.  He could get away with distributing it, but he'd 
be making a better business decision, IMO, if he did it the 
"right" way.

Such a port wouldn't make much money (my guess) and would be 
unpopular with people who'd accuse Tim of side-stepping the intent
of the GPL even if he kept it legal.  On the other hand, if he 
did the port the "right" way, he'd make a name for yourself
that might make earn him a few bucks in support contracts, 
or other programming/porting/consulting work.  Stallman charges 
over $200 an hour for consulting, and gets it apparently, 
because people know he's good - partly because they have seen 
the proof in all the source code he's released.
-- 
-- Bill Johnston (johnston@me.udel.edu)
-- 38 Chambers Street; Newark, DE 19711; (302)368-1949

-- 
-- Bill Johnston (johnston@me.udel.edu)
-- 38 Chambers Street; Newark, DE 19711; (302)368-1949