From: rs@cmie.ernet.in (Rajappa Iyer)
Subject: Re: Tidbits 01/27/93
Organization: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Bombay
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 09:47:02 GMT

In article <1993Jan28.000203.26924@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:

> [ Stuff about John Gilmore of Cygnus Support advocating that Novell
>   make Unix source code freely available and make money by charging
>   for support. ]

>   Gilmore clearly has never read a Novell license if he thinks that
>   it is even a remote possibility that his advice will be taken. And
>   apparently he does not understand the large number of features
>   missing in the Unix environment that are standardly available in
>   the PC world.  Nor does he seem to have any idea of the numbers
>   and kinds of applications available on PCs that make the kinds of
>   "free" software he supports so strongly look like toys.  (Really,
>   only in the area of developer tools does "free" software even come
>   close to the quality of software available in the PC world.  Even
>   in this area, there is much better available, though you do have
>   the disadvantage of having to pay for it.  However, for the average
>   user, there is almost no "free" software available).

As someone who has used both PC software and "free" software for
developers extensively I have to say that the above is, to put it
mildly, the purest of drivel.  Brian, I strongly suggest you have a
look at the kind of code that GCC (for example) generates and square
it off against *any* PC compiler of your choice. Take a look at emacs
and tell me how *any* PC editor of your choice stacks up against it.
Look at flex, bison etc. and tell me about the competition. Look at
the brain-dead (for most part) Make's available with PC compilers and
compare them with the "free" Make's extant.

The quality of "free" software is various, no doubt, but the best of
them are less buggy and more featured than their commercial
counterparts.

As far as applications go, the quality of PC (MS-DOS or equivalent)
applications leave much to be desired, IMHO. Most of them are fighting
hard against RAM cram and trying to do things which MS-DOS never
intended to let them do. The result: conflicting TSRs, memory
management schemes, networking products etc. Are you seriously
suggesting that Unix applications are less powerful? Perhaps you'd
care to tell me what application domain you are considering?

>   Now picture Ray Noorda's face when he realizes that not only is
>   Gilmore quite serious about what he said, but that he [Noorda] has
>   inherited an OS where a significant and influenential minority of
>   the end-user community hold such views. Imagine Novell resellers
>   coping with such people.

Note that not everyone wants apps for free. From your note, it does
not appear the Gilmore suggested that Novell distribute the sources to
it's apps free. If the "bare bones" OS is available free, then it is
up to the user to decide which apps they wish to buy and which they
don't. The only question is where do you draw the line and define what
constitutes the "bare bones" OS.

-- 
Rajappa Iyer			rs@cmie.ernet.in (Preferred)
				riyer@shakti.ncst.ernet.in
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy