sommers@topaz.ARPA (Mamaliz @ The Soup Kitchen) (06/29/85)
First of all, I want to assure everyone (even you Richard) that I am no way employed by Unipress, nor am I a spokeswoman for them. What I have been is a fascinated observer of this charade. As Richard knows, my housemate works for Unipress, so this may give this letter some bias. Michael has NOTHING to do with this letter. > > Unfortunately, this will delay the the time you receive the GNU Emacs > manual. I'm sure Unipress is happy to have accomplished that. Richard, I would like to know when anybody at Unipress has ever tried to hinder the development or distribution of GNU Emacs. When has Unipress ever tried to stop this project or even shown any interest in it at all? All I have seen are complaints from you and a very mildly worded statement from Unipress stating that they have no problem with public domain software with Emacs functionality. > > Software sharers are happy if you get good software. > Software-hoarding organizations such as Unipress and CCA are looking > for ways they can restrict you, because each restriction they can > manage to impose means more pressure on you to pay them. If there > is an alternative to paying them, they want to close it off. Oh, are you going to turn this into a war of morals and martyrdom? This is getting terribly silly. Mudslinging doesn't really get you anywhere. This debate would have never started if you had not tried to use copyrighted code (by your own admission). A company cannot continue to develop software if they have no software to sell. Looking at your previous work, it seems that you would NEVER have had any trouble in writing the new display code yourself. Leaving it in seems to have been a deliberate goad on your part. > > This is the kind of attitude that people develop when they make a > habit of profiting from interfering with other people. Richard, when has anyone ever interfered with your work? Would you even notice if they did? > > In the long run, you are better off encouraging the growth of organizations > that want to give you software, and not feeding companies Unipress or CCA > that really just want to take as much as possible from you. Richard, I realize that you can support yourself for a year on two weeks consulting, but most of us poor souls can't. We work for companies that sell the product of our labors and then pay us a salary. We then can spend our spare time writing public domain software. The size of net.sources shows you that many of us do this. Hopefully, the software we write will fulfill new needs and not just be a rehash of old stuff. When are you going to put your talents to designing a NEW OS to meet tomorrow's needs or writing something that can be used on machines available in ghetto classrooms? GNU Emacs is a lovely product, I have heard nothing but praise for it. You should be proud of it. Why do you have to dirty your creation by trying to start wars? lizzy -- liz sommers uucp: ...{harvard, seismo, ut-sally, sri-iu, ihnp4!packard}!topaz!sommers arpa: sommers@rutgers