HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stevedav@netcom.com (Steve Davidson)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Postscript and TIFF capabilities with troff/groff
Keywords: postscript troff groff text TIFF
Date: 2 Oct 92 00:13:34 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

Feature sought:
I need to combine postscript capabilities with troff/groff.

The task is to produce documents with shading, "reverse video",
bubbles/ellipsis (instead of rectangles), etc.

I also must incorporate TIFF images into documents.

This will produce professional-looking documents such as invoices,
letters, envelopes, work-tickets, etc.

Can anyone suggest software that can do this?

I prefer Gnu-like free software.

(I will post results to the net if anyone shows interest).

Steve Davidson
steved@cfcl.com
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Subject: Re: Suggestions for the free Unix projects
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 14:46:34 GMT

Let's look at the minimum for a releasable version on 386BSD:

In article <1992Oct3.221703.1496@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@icarus.weber.edu writes:
> o	The absolute minimum 150 page ring-bound manual and 3 disks costs
> 	~$20 including shrink-wrap labor.  This is quantity 1000.

Leave the printed manual out. Sell it separately as a $50 book set in the
bookstores.

> o	Packing and shipping costs are a minimum of $16, assuming UPS
> 	ground.

Make this a line item, to encourage quantity purchases.

> o	A "media charge" for tape distribution of $18 is not unreasonable,
> 	assuming QIC tape and bulk purchase, given production time.  Add
> 	to this additional costs for amortization of alternate tape
> 	systems if they are going to be used.

For QIC I'd say that was low.

> o	A "media charge" of $30 is not unreasonable if CD-ROM's are used,

Well, there are a number of people selling CD-ROM sets of free software
for $25-$40, so this is in line.

> o	A "media charge" of $80 for a *full* high-density floppy distribution
> 	(unless you own disk duplication equipment) using generic high
> 	density disks would be getting off light.

Agreed.

> How does $1000 sound?  Like BSDI?

Yep. For a source distribution. How about for a binary distribution? I know,
it's not popular, but it's inevitable.

> Say, I sound like "Bruce" on "Talk Net", don't I?  8-) 8-).

Usenet is like Talknet where you can call Bruce up when he says something
dumb (which does happen occasionally).
-- 
Peter da Silva                                          `-_-'
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.                               'U` 
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012           "Heeft u vandaag al uw wolf geknuffeld?"
+1 713 274 5180            "Dat is mijn gezel, en niet bedoeld als een fooi."
From: rwm@atronx.OCUnix.On.Ca (Russell McOrmond)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: "official" FSF position on apple
Date: 27 Sep 92 18:49:39 GMT
	<1992Sep23.104359.16270@tamsun.tamu.edu>

mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) writes:
>Anyway, there is such a thing as a Macintosh-compatible non-Apple computer. 
>The Outbound laptop is one, and the new Radius plug-in multiprocessing board
>is another.

  As well as the numerous Mac compatable systems such as AMAX/etc for the Amiga
where your Amiga essentially 'becomes' a Mac.

BTW:  I am on the side of 'Apple is a software company' because the only
distinctive thing they have is their sofware.  Hardware wise one could
design a mac in a weekend, but software wise is another story.

  Then again, I can't stand to use a Mac because I find them too un-reliable,
and bomb too often.  It's an 'old dog, new trick' problem for me because
I'm so used to a multi-tasking environment that I can't stop my
'multi-threaded' way of thinking long enough to be able to effectively use
a system like the Mac or Microsoft Windows.

>mathew
--
  Opinions expressed in this message are my Own. I represent nobody else.
  Russell McOrmond  rwm@Atronx.OCUnix.On.Ca Net Support:(613) 230-2282(V.32Bis)
  FidoNet 1:163/109 Welmat Help 1:1/139  Current WELMAT 'keeper of sources'.
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd
From: sdw@meaddata.com (Stephen Williams)
Subject: Re: Suggestions for the free Unix projects
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:32:29 GMT

peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
...
: > o	A "media charge" of $30 is not unreasonable if CD-ROM's are used,
: 
: Well, there are a number of people selling CD-ROM sets of free software
: for $25-$40, so this is in line.
: 
I'm surprised someone else hasn't given these numbers:

From a number of places, here are ballpark figures:

$1500 for the first 100 CD's, mastered from Tape (8mm or dat).
About $3 for each after that.

A 'One off' costs $200-500.

A one off writer costs $5500, blanks cost $25+ (Kodak (Picture CD) can
do it much cheaper, but they won't license the technology except to
special people like MCI for bills).

A complete mastering system costs $20000+ (Plus I assume you have to
get them pressed at some place big, don't know.).

I may be interested in making a CD eventually, especially for a local
and/or remote X-windows setup!

And yes, I will sell it at a (reasonable) profit.

sdw
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: ejh@khonshu.colorado.edu (Edward J. Hartnett)
Subject: approptiate limerick
Organization: CIRES, University of Colorado
Date: 3 Oct 92 14:06:09

When bored with the old tried-and-true way,
As well as the dildo-in-lieu way,
        A zoo keepers wife
        Put zest in her life
With a fling at "a fabulous gnu way!"



Sorry. Couldn't help it.
--
Edward Hartnett			ejh@khonshu.colorado.edu
From: melennec@stna.dgac.fr (Ronan Melennec STNA 7C p8240 BD22)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Don't know how to generate an index file from a texinfo source
Keywords: index, texinfo
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:53:46 GMT
Organization: STNA 95 rue Henri Rochefort 91025 Evry Cedex 33(1)60.79.80.00

Hello,

I'm using Bison (1.18) and I would like to print its manual.
Everything prints fine except the index, which remains empty.

I've looked for clues in the INSTALL and Makefile.in files,
to no avail.

Do I have to use makeindex or a similar tool ?
*Somebody* must have done it already :-)

Thank you for any hints,
-- 
Ronan Melennec              | Service Technique de la Navigation Aerienne
+33 1 60 79 82 40           | Departement 7
melennec@stna7.stna.dgac.fr | 95, rue Henri Rochefort, 91025 EVRY CEDEX, FRANCE
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: tzs@stein.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Subject: Re: "official" FSF position on apple
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 07:41:43 GMT

Matthias Neeracher writes:
>>they've got a "clean-development" room where they're reverse-engineering those
>>ROM routines, and trying to figure out the copy protection schemes...
>
>Copy protection schemes ? Are you sure you're talking about a Mac and not about
>a TI 99/4? Mac ROMs are so heavily copy protected that it takes a 12 year old
>with an EPROM burner to copy them :-)
>

There's a location in the Mac Plus ROMs that if you jump to it, the Apple
symbol in the menu bar gets replaced with "THIS ROM STOLEN FROM APPLE."

That 12 year old with the EPROM burner might want to make sure that the
ROMs don't actually use that code before building systems with the copied
ROMs. :-)

--Tim Smith
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd
From: bjork@telebit.com (Steven Bjork)
Subject: Radical solutions, was Re: Software copying a felony?!
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: Telebit Corporation; Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 22:30:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep27.102102.7541@nntp.hut.fi> jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
>Avoid?  How's that again?

[etc]

>But if that doesn't work, a mandatory government tap usable from a
>remote location will be made mandatory to build into every piece of
>computer equipment.

"They" are asking for this already (for telephones), of course.

Well, I can vote with my pen, and if things go too far,
I'll end up voting with an H&K, Uzi, etc.

--Steven not really a bearded anarchist, just bearded :).
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: steinarb@idt.unit.no (Steinar Bang)
Subject: Re: Making Mach build with non-CMU tools (suggestions)
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Date: 5 Oct 92 14:20:41

> In article <STEINARB.92Oct4172851@hagtorn.idt.unit.no>, steinarb@idt.unit.no (Steinar Bang) writes:

>> One of the files in the docs/notes directory of mach.cs.cmu.edu
>> mentions that the Mach people at CMU are working on moving the
>> Makefiles over to a format usable by a freely available Make (The OSF
>> ODE Make based on the BSD-Reno Make from the).
>>	...
>> Do the changes necessary to the CMU Makefiles to make them work
>>     with the ODE Make (or the GNU Make for that matter), and nicely
>>     ask CMU to start using these Makefiles in their distribution.

>> Suggestion 2 is the most desirable solution. It is however a biiig
>> job. It is not "fun" enough that anyone ever is likely to sit down and
>> do it for free, which means that some company or organization will
>> have to pay someone to do the work.

>> The question: is who is going to do it? CMU don't have any incentives
>> for the time being. OSF? FSF? I don't know.

>>>>> david@postman.gr.osf.org (David George) writes:

> OSF RI has already done this work for the Mach 3.0 (NORMA) microkernel
> and OSF/1 single server, we use ODE as our day to day build environment but
> generally to build for i386 AT architectures (AT, COMPAQ SYSPRO, COROLLARY).
> This work is available to OSF/1.0 licencees.

But it is not available to non-licensees, so it will not be any use to
FSF or people at non-BSD licensee organizations (or hobbyists wishing
to roll out eg. GNU Hurd on their home computer). I am in the work of
getting the BSD licensing stuff fixed, so hopefully this will not be a
problem for me personally much longer.

It will still be a problem for the FSF and experimenters at
organizations without a BSD license, though.

> I can appreciate the amount of work required to convert all the
> platforms CMU build to the ODE environment [Mary Thompson detailed
> some of the problems she'd encountered in her Email to you of the
> 10/01].

Yes. It is because of that email message I am bringing this issue up
in a gnu newsgroup.

> Extensions to ODE are needed for some platforms and cross
> compilation is not supported with the version we use.  I can't
> realistically see CMU wanting to support two build environments
> while they convert.

Neither can I, really. So maybe the best solutions for all parties
would be to make GNU Make support the CMU enhancements.

*Even* though this might mean cluttering GNU Make with facilities
needed to compile a single program (ie. the Mach 3.0 microkernel).

I would be curious to know the opinions of Roland McGrath (GNU Make
maintainer) and Michael I. Bushnell (GNU Hurd developer) on this
subject. 

- Steinar
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: terjer@ifi.unit.no (Terje Rydland)
Subject: Re: "official" FSF position on apple
Followup-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Organization: IfI, UNIT-AVH
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 13:20:58 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.111751.13586@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter
da > 
> > They seem to be willing to sell it to Radius and Outbound.
> 
> I beleive they're actually buying complete Macs and cannibalizing them. That's
> what other vendors have had to do.

Outbound does this as I have heard, not Radius.


Dept. of Informatics, UNIT, Trondheim, Norway
Internet : terjer@ifi.unit.no
AppleLink: NOR0103
Tlf : +47-7-591845
Fax : +47-7-591733
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: "mike frisch" <mike.frisch@canrem.com>
Subject: os/2 support
Reply-To: "mike frisch" <mike.frisch@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: gnu
Date: 6 Oct 92 18:19:56 EST


     Does anybody have a listing of compiled GNU apps available for
OS/2?  I am aware of GhostScript, GNU C++, GNUplot, and GNUHack.

Mike.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Mike Frisch                  Usenet:  mike.frisch@canrem.com  |
|  Newmarket, Ontario, Canada                                    |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

---
  OLX 2.2  So crowded in here, I must go outside to change my mind!
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
From: tzs@stein.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Suggestions for the free Unix projects
Date: 6 Oct 92 08:11:14 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

Here's a weird idea, prompted by contemplation of the fact that Bill Gates,
if he were feeling generous, could buy every programmer in the United
States a copy of BSD386, and still have money left over.

friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman) writes:
>afford the slightly higher costs the next time you purchase GNU software,
>please consider it---the FSF could use the money.

Has the FSF ever considered a temporary compromise of its principles in
the short run in order to better achieve long term results?  In other
words, sell its software to raise money for development of free software?

Consider, for example, this fantasy universe, in which something like
the above was done early:

	It's the late '70s.  While most of us who hack on "real" computers
dismiss the new microcomputers as amusing toys, RMS realizes that he can
do a lot of good with a lot of money, and realizes that microcomputer
software is going to be big.  Thus is born GNU-Basic for the 8080.  Soon
to follow is GNU-DOS for IBM.  These are sold as commercial, supported,
binary-only software.

	Ten years later, RMS is worth about $5,000,000,000, and GNUSoft
dominates the industry.

	Now that he has money, RMS can do free software in a big way.
Interest and investment income bring in about $500,000,000/year for
RMS.  He takes this and hires 2500 programmers at $100,000/yr each
to write free software.  Another 500 or so people are hired at $100,000/yr
each to document and support the free software.  In addition, up to
2000 GNUGrants of $100,000 each are given each year to programmers not
included above to develop free software (i.e., if you want to develop
something neat, you submit a proposal and perhaps receive a GNUGrant).
In ten years, the only significant non-free software is software that
organizations develop for their internal use.  Everything else is free.

OK, back to our universe.  It's probably too late for anyone to become
a software billionaire, but suppose FSF operated in a for-profit manner
for several years, and then switched back to free-mode?  Would the net
result, say, 20 years from now be better or worse?

--Tim Smith
From: skfat@tuhhco.rz.tu-harburg.de (Isa Afsin Toparlak)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Public domain DATABASE SYSTEM.
Keywords: database public domain copyleft
Date: 2 Oct 92 10:51:10 GMT

stevedav@netcom.com (Steve Davidson) writes:

>Can anyone suggest a free, public domain, or copylefted
>database system that meets the following requirements:

>It is multi-user with record locking.
>It must have fast indexing including a B-tree and a hash.
>It needs to maintain a large and growing collection of data.
>It should interface well with Unix utilities.

>Any suggestions are appreciated.

>I will re-post results if anyone shows interest.

>Steve Davidson
>steved@cfcl.com

POSTGRES is an advanced database management system. Rule extension,
distributed, multi user and so on. It is being developed at Berkeley:
Prof Stonebraker and his team.

Look at for POSTGRES at ftp address:

	postgres.berkeley.edu

you will find papers and application such as "geo" etc in dir. /pub

Good Luck

Bye

I. Afsin Toparlak
TU Hamburg-Harburg, Dept. of Ship Technical Constructions
+49(040)77182670,Fax:-"-2303,toparlak@tu-harburg.de
Xref: sparky gnu.misc.discuss:3211 comp.os.linux:12393 comp.unix.bsd:6807
From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Suggestions for the free Unix projects
Date: 3 Oct 1992 11:55:09 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: almaak.usc.edu

I have watched the Linux/BSD/GNU projects with much joy.
I have a few suggestions.


0. Packaging
------------

I think the Most important constraint impeding relatively novice users
from using Linux (I don't know about 386BSD) is the difficulty of
installation.  I can think of lots of university folk who have used a
Unix account at school with much ease, but are intimidated by the
problems of installation.

Packages like MCC interim, SLS, etc. are steps in the right direction.
I think they are important, and need to be done better.  They
certainly need better documentation.

There may be a role for a profit-making company to make a $50
shrink-wrapped free Unix with a manual and limited support.


1. Binary compatibility
-----------------------

From the end-users perspective, I think binary compatibility is
incredibly important.  I mean binary compatibility across versions of
the OS and across the three major free Unixes.

In my ideal world, I would be able to:
a) pick a OS -- any OS -- of the three
b) grab binaries for programs I plan to run, without regard for my
   choice at step a
c) be able to move versions of the OS or to a different OS without
   needing to get (say) TeX binaries afresh
d) Ideally, be able to run commercial software for 386-Unix too.

When Linux was younger there were Major kernel changes being done
every month.  But maybe it's now possible to talk about ways to ensure
that all future kernel releases will be able to run binaries which
conform with definition X.

Intel has a binary compatibility standard for x86 Unix.  Is that too
hard to support?  A important payoff of supporting it would be easy
access to commercial Unix software.  The other path to getting access
to commercial software would be to write a emulation box (that already
exists for Linux, to run Xenix binaries).

Talking about commercial software brings me to the next point:


2. Xbase
--------

The GNU project is already working on such anti-hacker objectives as a
Fortran and a spreadsheet.  :-)   (I completely agree with the
proposition that these need to be done).  In that spirit, I think we
also need a Xbase clone.

Ideally it should be a Xbase compiler, but an interpretor would also
be good.  It should certainly open .dbf files from out there.  (Would
it be the ugliest frontend to gcc ever?  Or would Fortran still take
that prize?).

I'm not claiming Xbase has anything to offer to someone who knows
Unix.  Personally I would not use it ever.  I suspect it's the Most
important single piece of commercial software out there with a
well-defined standard (fileformat and language specn).  A good free
Xbase implementation would make free Unixes more attractive to the
end-user (as would GNU Fortran and Oleo).
-- 
Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@usc.edu
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: "official" FSF position on apple
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<BvIGCM.Ixs@rice.edu> <1992Oct6.210041.19546@cgrg.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 00:50:55 GMT

DB> == Dariusz Bolski <derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu> 

 DB> This is really interesting. First I hear from many people that Mac
 DB> is a viable platform even in b/w (color is available for the Mac
 DB> for not so long) and then I hear that this machine is not worth
 DB> anything.

The Plus is an old 68000 machine.  It's not the monochrome that makes
the difference, it's the age and the processor.  As an example of a
newer, more powerful Mac in the same basic form factor, look at an SE/30
or Classic II; faster processors, more room for RAM, internal hard
drives (another thing the Plus lacked), more stuff in ROM so less of the
System needs to be loaded into RAM, etc.

The Mac has been around since 1984.  Color has been available since
1987.  It is now 1992.  Color Macs have been around almost twice as long
as the time between the 128 and the Mac II.

Most of the machines I work with have grayscale monitors of various
sizes.  My home machine has color, but my old SE worked just fine in
1-bit (and my parents still use it in that very configuration).  My
workstation has a one-bit screen, too (Sun4/25) and there's nothing
wrong with it.

The point is that talking about an emulator that only emulates the
features of a Mac Plus is not very interesting relative to many of the
new features *besides color* which have been developed since then, no
matter how fast a Mac Plus it emulates.  Certainly comparing its raw
speed to a IIci is hardly a useful comparison.
--
Christopher K. Davis      |       NET.INSIGHTS INTO ARTISTIC CRITICISM:
<ckd@eff.org>   EFF #14   | ``[Y]ou don't cure bad art by locking it all up
System Administrator, EFF | in one museum, you cure it by throwing tomatoes
+1 617 864 0665  [CKD1]   | at bad artists.'' --Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
From: stevedav@netcom.com (Steve Davidson)
Subject: Public domain DATABASE SYSTEM.
Keywords: database public domain copyleft
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 00:10:24 GMT

Can anyone suggest a free, public domain, or copylefted
database system that meets the following requirements:

It is multi-user with record locking.
It must have fast indexing including a B-tree and a hash.
It needs to maintain a large and growing collection of data.
It should interface well with Unix utilities.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

I will re-post results if anyone shows interest.

Steve Davidson
steved@cfcl.com

Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.mach
From: gip200@sci.kun.nl (gip2 course)
Subject: Re: Making Mach build with non-CMU tools (suggestions)
Reply-To: peter@global.hacktic.nl
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 10:26:57 GMT

In <STEINARB.92Oct4172851@hagtorn.idt.unit.no> steinarb@idt.unit.no (Steinar Bang) writes:

>One of the files in the docs/notes directory of mach.cs.cmu.edu
>mentions that the Mach people at CMU are working on moving the
>Makefiles over to a format usable by a freely available Make (The OSF
>ODE Make based on the BSD-Reno Make from the). This work has been put
>on low priority pending a favorable settlement of the BNR-2 lawsuit.
Can't they just take GNU make and modify that?

>It also has to be a problem for the FSF. They would seem to
>need an OS kernel that can be configured and compiled without a BSD
>license.
What about BSDSS and POE? And there is Linux, which is not very
portable but large parts of it might be useful.

>I have the following suggestions to remedy this problem:

> 1. Change GNU Make to support the same facilities as CMU Make
That is probably the best solution at this moment. It is independent
of what CMU does. If they change their makefiles, we can switch to
GNU make, pmake, or whatever they use. If they don't, then that's
ok too.

> 2. Do the changes necessary to the CMU Makefiles to make them work
>    with the ODE Make (or the GNU Make for that matter), and nicely
>    ask CMU to start using these Makefiles in their distribution.
But that leaves you at the 'mercy' of CMU. It might be that they are
not willing to change and that means that a lot of work is lost...

>Suggestion 2 is the most desirable solution. It is however a biiig
>job. It is not "fun" enough that anyone ever is likely to sit down and
>do it for free, which means that some company or organization will
>have to pay someone to do the work.
If I knew what to do, I might do it. You're right, it won't be fun, but
there is plenty of it behind the horizon. :-)

>The question: is who is going to do it? CMU don't have any incentives
>for the time being. OSF? FSF? I don't know.
The incentive is to be able to have a free Mach OS on your pet machine.

I'll have a look in the docs to see if I can set up a mailing list.

Please send e-mail to peter@global.hacktic.nl. This account is a group
account and e-mail might be deleted by the others in the group.
Xref: sparky gnu.misc.discuss:3170 comp.sys.mac.advocacy:609