brant@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Brant Cheikes) (08/25/87)
I received the following letter concerning Unix PC Gnu Emacs: ---------- Begin letter From: moss!genesis!dhn@rutgers.edu Date: Tue 25 Aug 1987 09:39 EDT Subject: GNU Emacs for the UNIX pc ... Hello, I caught your posting on having a working version of GNU emacs for the UNIX pc and an idea came to me. One of the reasons why many UNIX pc owners don't run GNU emacs is that you need > 10 MB of free storage to build the thing. Ideally interested persons should be able to pull GNUmacs off The STORE as a binary, installable entity. Don't you think ?!? Since you have gone through the trouble already would you consider putting together a binary distribution ? By judicious use of compress and Shared Libraries it should be possible to make the thing a reasonable size. Please give it some thought. If you need any help with either setting up an installable (STORE type) package or with getting the thing to build with Shared Libraries just give a yell. Thanks, David Nochlin Formerly: | Currently: UNIX and Executive Workstations Dept. | Medical Diagnostic Systems Product Engineering Group | Medical Diagnostic Imaging Group AT&T Informations Systems Labs | AT&T Bell Laboratories ( The people who brought you the | HR 2E-004 UNIX pc !!! ) | Middletown, NJ ---------- End letter I have looked the Gnu Emacs distribution over, and it seems that I could put together a binary distribution with relative ease, and it would require somewhere between 1 and 2 Mb of disk storage. However, I posted a suggestion similar to Nochlin's several weeks ago and received no response. I thus inferred no interest. Is that still the case? If there's enough interest, I'd be happy to do it. I can only foresee one problem. I am running V3.51 of everything, and I know that the Gnu Emacs I had built under 3.5 had to be rebuilt under 3.51 (it was really weirding out on me). I suspect the problem lies in the way Gnu memory image gets dumped out, and that we could get around the problem by distributing the compiled "raw" Gnu and let people dump out their own executables (development kit not required for that, and the procedure is automated in the Makefile). Otherwise, it would be necessary to distribute different versions for 3.5 and 3.51, since judging from the sentiment on the net, AT&Ts marketing "strategy" with regard to the 3.51 upgrade is not encouraging people to update their systems. And then it's possible that the dumped images will still not work on any memory configuration. But hey, I'm willing to try if there's interest. Respond directly to me if you'd like to see a binary Gnu Emacs distribution. Of course, the question I fear this will raise is: "what's Gnu Emacs and why should I bother with it?" That, of course, is an extended article in itself. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brant Cheikes University of Pennsylvania ARPA: brant@linc.cis.upenn.edu Computer and Information Science =============================================================================
farren@hoptoad.uucp (Mike Farren) (08/26/87)
I'm basically in favor of the idea of GnuEmacs on the Unix PC, but the
idea of distributing the binaries has a flaw: the license agreement
for GnuEmacs specifically states that anyone who distributes it MUST
provide sources on request. If a mechanism for this can be worked out,
then fire away...
--
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"... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
Mike Farren that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
hoptoad!farren Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"brant@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Brant Cheikes) (08/26/87)
In article <2826@hoptoad.uucp> farren@hoptoad.UUCP (Mike Farren) writes: >I'm basically in favor of the idea of GnuEmacs on the Unix PC, but the >idea of distributing the binaries has a flaw: the license agreement >for GnuEmacs specifically states that anyone who distributes it MUST >provide sources on request. You are both right and wrong. You are right in that I must provide sources upon request, according to the Gnu Emacs General Distribution License. You are wrong in thinking that poses a problem to the distribution of the binaries only. Consider this excerpt from the Gnu license: 3. You may copy and distribute GNU Emacs or any portion of it in compiled, executable or object code form under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above provided that you do the following: a) cause each such copy of GNU Emacs to be accompanied by the corresponding machine-readable source code; or b) cause each such copy of GNU Emacs to be accompanied by a written offer, with no time limit, to give any third party free (except for a nominal shipping charge) machine readable copy of the corresponding source code; or c) in the case of a recipient of GNU Emacs in compiled, executable or object code form (without the corresponding source code) you shall cause copies you distribute to be accompanied by a copy of the written offer of source code which you received along with the copy of GNU Emacs. 3(b) and (c) are the keys. I will simply OFFER to provide sources on request (and will in fact provide the info as to how to get the stuff directly from the FSF). But I can still distribute binaries only. As for sources, just ask, and you get. No problem. It would be really stupid to be forced to provide sources to people who, for example, don't have the development kit and therefore could make absolutely no use of them. Brant ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brant Cheikes University of Pennsylvania ARPA: brant@linc.cis.upenn.edu Computer and Information Science =============================================================================