🚀 go-pugleaf

hjb@netcom.com (Hwa-Jin Bae) writes:

>i have not decided what the spirit of GNU is on my own.  it is clear
>that GNU/FSF stands for free flow of information.  if you want to argue
>that this is wrong interpretation, you may.   

Free flow of information within the limitations of the GPL, of course.
Some people will argue that GNU code is not actually free at all (I am
not one of those people).

>it's one thing to alpha-release something.  it's quite another to
>purposefully do what cygnus does.  i have confirmation of this from cygnus
>personnel, their current workers.  cygnus isn't simply delaying
>distribution of some of their software for alpha-testing purpose. they're
>doing it for marketing, promotion, and money.  i think they need not resort
>to doing so, but they do.

This is simply false.  

I don't know who you have been talking to.  

I am posting this message not to convince you, since better people
have tried and failed, but to contradict this argument in case
somebody who does not know the facts happens to believe it.

In certain cases Cygnus customers will get code which has not yet been
in an official FSF release, merely because of the timing of the
releases.  However, you specifically charge that Cygnus delays
releases for the purposes of marketing, promotion, and money.  This
has not happened in the time I have been at Cygnus (I was hired in mid
1992).

I believe that you are reading the Cygnus marketing literature, which
says something like ``Cygnus releases are the same as those on the
net'' and concluding that Cygnus releases have newer code which Cygnus
is providing only to its customers.  The actual case is that Cygnus
releases go through a long testing process which often puts them
behind what is available on the net.  The software is, one hopes, more
stable, but it is not newer.

There is an exception when Cygnus is hired to do development work for
specific companies.  In those cases, the work is, of course, provided
to the companies as soon as it is finished, and it is not available on
the net until the next release.  This is no different from any other
contractor who works on GNU code.  In some cases a company will hire
Cygnus to do specific work under a non-disclosure agreement.  In such
cases the work will not be available on the net until the
non-disclosure agreement terminates.  However, in such cases, the code
is provided only to the specific customer who payed for it, not to all
Cygnus customers.  This is, again, no different from any contractor
who is willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

I am an employee of Cygnus Support.  I do not speak for it.
-- 
Ian Taylor | ian@airs.com | First to identify quote wins free e-mail message:
``Let me state here a personal conviction that appears, right now, to be
  profoundly unfashionable; which is that a planned economy can be more
  productive - and more morally desirable - than one left to market forces.''