🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <RSW.92May12024413@flanger.cs.brown.EDU>, rsw@cs.brown.EDU (Bob Weiner) writes:
> How about a new topic now, like:  How GNU software has helped me.
> We could spend our lives on the negative; why not discuss some
> of the positive for awhile.

Okay, here goes.  [This is only about the effects of GNU for the
things I do at home.  Things at the University are similar, however.]

I have first heard of the FSF and Project GNU in 1989, when I tried to
compile NetHack on my atari st with a brain-dead commercial C compiler.
I looked in the makefile and found a line that said CC=gcc.  I asked
some people what the h*** this meant, and they told me that gcc was a
free C compiler.  (Actually they said it was PD.)  I said Oh well, if
it's free, it can't be good.

When I learned that source code was available, I said They can't be
making money if they give away all their trade secrets.  You see, till
then, had ``acquired'' all my software, which was all commercial
stuff.  I was used to copy-protection and to crackers who removed it.
That way, I could get something done on my computer at all.  I simply
didn't have the money to buy the software.

I said, OK, let's give it a whirl, and ftp'd gcc from (then)
dsrgsun.ces.cwru.edu.  The ftp server was new and faulty then, and it
took me dozens of attempts, some failing only in the last few Kbytes
of the archive file.  I unpacked it and read the docs.  (Yes, at that
time, I was young and innocent, so I read docs.  Now I'm mature, don't
read docs anymore and don't understand what the phrase RTFM means :-)
I was impressed by the optimization features, and I ran some test
files through it, and the commercial compiler.  Net result: gcc took
longer, but produced much better code.  That way, I became hooked.

Since then, I have running on my atari most of the GNU tools.  I threw
away all the commercial stuff (except for the hard disk driver).  I
run the fileutils, textutils, shellutils, gawk, bison, flex (though it
isn't GNU, strictly speaking), bash, emacs (for some time), gcc, g++,
binutils, ghostscript, indent, tar, you name it.

I have ported some of the software myself and this wouldn't have been
possible without the excellent C library by Jwahar R. Bammi, Eric R.
Smith, and numerous others.  Eric has written a multitasking kernel
with lots of BSD features for the st, so that I can now run most
everything in a UNIX-like fashion. Jwahar has ported gcc, and has
contributed more to ST-GNU than anybody could remember.  Thanks!

I have recently done a level 0 dump of all my files.  They amount to
57MB compressed tar archives.  Most of this is GNU stuff.  All is free
or PD software.  (Except for the hard disk driver, of course.)  Except
for gcc, I am now compiling everything from the sources.  I don't need
any binary distributions any more.  (But then, I have 4MB main memory
and a 520MB hard disk.  Others may not be so fortunate.)

Even now, with a slightly increased income, I could not have afforded
to spend so much money on commercial, equivalent products.  Besides,
most commercially available tools for the st come in an ``integrated
environment'' which means that they are incompatible with other tools,
plus I can't switch between tools easily.  Not so with souce
distributions.  If I have the source, I can (and do) alter it to fit
my needs.  No more ``The directory foo must be on the root of drive
d:.  I you don't have drive d:, that's tough on you, but that's the
way the software works.''

I prefer to spend my money on books on computing, on organization
memberships, and on general well-being.  (Trivial example: Do you know
what a good bicycle costs these days?) The FSF and Project GNU let me
do this without having to sacrifice an excellent development system
for my computer.

The FSF and the GNU Project have helped immensely, in many respects
(some almost certainly unintended).  They have advanced my fluency in
reading somebody else's source code, they have helped advance my
porting skills.  They have introduced me to some tools in the first
place (I never would have learned about awk, sed, lex and yacc, had
it not been for the docs that come with their GNU counterparts).  On
the funny side, they have introduced me to hacker's jargon, plus I
have learned some rather elaborate curses (although not from reading
GNU code), if things wouldn't work out as intended.

They have shown (as in `proven') that a completely free development
system is possible.  And last, but not least, they have changed my
attitude towards software licenses, especially from companies who are
making money by letting users pay for bug fixes (usually called
`updates'), and towards unacceptable prices.  E.g., $1000 for a UNIX
source license may be OK, provided that I get free updates, and may
share the code with others, but an order of magnitude more for an
original AT&T license is not.

If I write source code or documents, they all contain the GPL.
Despite numerous arguments against such ``heavy'' terms, I continue to
be happy with it.  I, as the author, remain in control of what happens
with the program.  By using the GPL, I make sure that AT&T, Apple,
Microsoft, (for example) are not going to incorporate it into their
products and sell it for $$$ as a binary-only distribution (and maybe
even getting that neat idea patented!).

For me, the FSF and Project GNU have been an unmixed blessing,
although I don't always agree with what their representatives say.

If you reply, please send mail to neuhaus@informatik.uni-kl.de, not
neuhaus@vier.informatik.uni-kl.de.  This is a bug in our news software,
and I'm not sure when we'll get it fixed.  Thank you.

If you want to publish this article somewhere, I'd be glad to be
notified.  (Maybe I can even get a free Author's copy of the next GNU
bulletin? :-)  If you want to publish only parts of this article,
please don't quote out of context.

-- 
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