🚀 go-pugleaf

  karl@cs.umb.edu (Karl Berry) writes:
. The FSF has a boycott on Apple, because of their (attempted)
. copyrighting of the Macintosh user interface.  So it's not appropriate
. to request Mac ports or whatever on gnu.* newsgroups/mailing lists.

  jorice@maths.tcd.IE (Jonathan Rice) writes:
. For the moment, it appears that it doesn't hurt too much to ignore 
. just Mac users.

  And it appears that it doesn't hurt Mac users too much to ignore just
the FSF. The key word there is appear, of course. I suspect that an
insignificant portion of the people who use Macintoshes, thereby supporting
Apple, have ever heard of the FSF much less of any boycott. The squeaky
wheel gets the grease, and no one hears any squeaking.

  If the FSF were to publicize their boycott within the Macintosh
community, it might actually have some impact. No matter how gently it is
asserted that it is out of line for a Macintosh user to ask questions here,
it does not imply concern about the interface licensing issue, nor an
agenda intended to bring about actual change, nor an interest in the
largest single group of people who support Apple and Adobe. Frankly, it
implies something of a sore grudge.

  It's a crying shame, too. Especially given the special relationship
between the Macintosh and PostScript. That relationship could only
highlight and further the aims of Ghostscript and hence the FSF.
Ghostscript would be big news to the Macintosh community. Big news.
So would the FSF.

  Stalin once said that if he could take over Hollywood, the rest of
America would follow within five years. Macintosh users are, by and large,
an evangelical lot with a fair track record for making progress. I wonder
who is getting the short end of the stick, a little.

  Adobe isn't exactly a public library, either. Surely Ghostscript furthers
the use of PostScript as much as a Ghostscript for the Mac would further
the use of Macintoshes. Why one and not the other?

  orpheus@reed.edu