oz@yetti.UUCP (Ozan Yigit) (06/28/85)
Although I feel that most of the legal discussions over the pieces of Goslings emacs code in GNU Emacs is a storm in a teacup, RMS should consider getting rid of this code from GNU EMACS, especially if the legal standing is shakey. An examplary case is the RICE University UNIX emulation PHOENIX under VMS. Since the kernel of this emulation was bootstrapped initially by modifiying the EUNICE Linker, SRI sued RICE University. (Incidentally, PHOENIX appeared to be superior to EUNICE..) The final settlement gives the rights of the kernel to SRI, and everything else to RICE. Although PHOENIX is distributed for a minimum fee of 600$, the licence agreement is between the user, SRI and RICE university. ALso I understand that the RICE university is prohibited for X years from developing another such kernel. The same thing could happen to RMS. After all, his EMACS is SUPERIOR to any commercial one, if you consider on the basis of what RMS accomplished in comparison to a slew of programmers in a commercial organization. I WOULD HATE TO SEE RMS LOSE HIS RIGHTS TO GNU EMACS, DUE TO SOME LEGAL TECHNICALITY!! At all eventuality, GNU effort will step onto a lot of commercial toes, thus it should not create ANY excuse whatsoever for any legal hassles which could cripple its growth and distribution. Even if the legal standing of RMS is stable, a court case would necessarily delay progress, cost a lot of money much needed for GNU development. Curiously, I cannot figure out why Goslings cannot assist RMS in this problem. Certainly, the small portion of gemacs code appearing in GNUEMACS could be "released" to public domain, without endangering any commercial EMACS, unless of course, the commercial entities that sell emacs are INTIMIDATED by GNU EMACS. (That says something about what GNU will do to the UN*X market !!!) Oz (All wizardesque side effects are unintentional, unless stated otherwise..) Usenet: [allegra | linus | decvax | ihnp4]!utzoo!yetti!oz Bitnet: oz@yuyetti | oz@yuleo ------------------------------------- Support GNU. Consider the 3-musketeers' motto: ONE FOR ALL - ALL FOR ONE.