🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <JTW.91Nov5191429@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> jtw@lcs.mit.edu (John Wroclawski) writes:
>   This is exactly what GNU does not do.  It spends most of its 
>   time reinventing programs that have been around for years.

Note that some of the GNU software may "do the same thing" but
has radically different internals from their Unix counterparts.
For example, GNU diff uses a much neater algorithm, and some of
the multiprecision math stuff in the GNU MP library is just
amazing.

Granted, there is nothing terribly innovative about "GNU cat" :-)

>This only makes sense if you think that all programs which perform the
>same function are the same. GCC is, in fact, remarkably innovative -
>many folks thought building a retargetable highly optimizing compiler
>was impossible until quite recently.

Note that GCC was based on the work of Chris Fraser at the U of Arizona,
and so this particular innovation should not be attributed to the
GNU project.  I think the main innovation of GCC is simply in making
a retargetable optimizing compiler widely available.  This is already
showing some significant benefits for research--I believe several research
projects, e.g., language designs or compiler techniques, have started
with GCC and proceeded to work from there, rather than having either to
reinvent the world or license a non-redistributable compiler that would
prevent them from ever redistributing their work.