🚀 go-pugleaf

   In article <1992Jan13.003932.19292@donau.et.tudelft.nl> reinoud@dutecai.et.tudelft.nl (;R. Lamberts) writes:

   Why is typical GNU software a remake of something that has been around
   for a long time, preferrably for decades already? Isn't the FSF in
   an ideal situation to try something new in software, not facing the
   risks of a commercial enterprise?

FSF has delibrately choosen to not do research in computer science,
engineering and applications.  Our goal is to provide freely
redistributable software that is useful, including a system powerful
enough so you don't have to buy proprietary non-sharable software.

When you do something "new" as a research project, you are never sure
how it will work out.  Usually you get something that is hard to
use and not popular among users and developers.  Often the result
doen't even work all that well.

FSF's resources are better spent providing freed versions of programs
that are already popular among users and developers.  And do small
innovations on them as users request them, or as as the authors
believe they will be useful.  And make them as bug-free and high
quality as possible.

Note that we are not restricted to the Unix tradition of what's
useful, but have taken programs and features from many different O/S
traditions when they make sense.  This is part of what's meant by
"GNU's Not Unix".  We also take useful programs as they come out of
both the research and user communities.

We also try and make our programs customizable and extensible by their
users.  And we provide source code.  Both allows the user community to
innovate.

In summary, FSF does small new things in software, not large ones.

enjoy -len