larryh@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Larry Hutchinson) (04/06/89)
If you are the kind of person that enjoys watching other people fight, I'd suggest that you "g gnu.gcc" and check out the Apple bashing going on over there. It's really a hoot! (The down side is that you have to wade through a pile of "real" articles.) But for BOB's sake, DO NOT post articles yourself... Stallman would probably get really pissed. P.S. The BOB refered to above is "Bob The Weather Cat" -- not the other BOB. P.P.S. Stallman is a "free spirit" that espouses a a concept called "Free Software" and promots the idea through the medium of a project called GNU -- GNU's not UNIX. Stallman doesn't like Apple's lawsuit with Microsoft and HP. A few quotes taken completely out of context follow: (The original article that started it all has expired on my machine.) From: dboyes@titan.rice.edu (David Boyes) How? Apple has consistently acted in a fashion counter to the goals and ideals behind the GNU project. Why should RMS waste blodd and sweat over something that he has little or no control over and no indications that any changes are in the works? From: rms@WHEATIES.AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Stallman) Subject: What is the poison in the Apple? If they win these suits, they will be able to crush free replacements along with proprietary replacements. And if this becomes accepted practice, most other companies will doubtless join in, even though they are not now among those trying to establish the new monopolies. Then free software would be limited to things that software did before 1980, for around 70 more years: till long after I am dead. I could continue writing free software for the rest of the world, but Americans would not get the benefit of it. From: shebs@Apple.COM (Stanley Todd Shebs) Subject: Re: GNU's not GNU... First off, Apple is the second-largest anarchy in the world - it's just behind Beirut. Second, every Appleite considers her/himself a visionary; engineers, beancounters, managers, the janitorial staff. These two facts have many consequences. For instance, it is very hard to get any sort of agreement, and impossible to resolve major disputes, even if every level of management concurs on a position. If the company appears to act with any sort of unity, it's because most of the employees are behind the action (or in certain sensitive cases, a gag order has been imposed...). From: hsu@kampi.hut.fi (Heikki Suonsivu) Subject: Re: GNU's not GNU... And if Apple wins the lawsuit, companies get more hungry while they are eating, and soon you'll find out that you can't write any more spreadsheets because someone has patented that. Or editors, or... From: shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro) Subject: Re: What is the poison in the Apple? I own a Mac II (purchased before the lawsuit nonsense) and I will never willingly buy another apple product. The reasons are that Apple is acting in a fashion I believe is improper in these lawsuits, and that apple's pricing and upgrade policies when coupled with their support policies are hurting the individual users. The Mac-II to Mac-IIx upgrade gives me nothing I want, but wait and see how quickly they obsolete the Mac II. From: jk@Apple.COM (John Kullmann) Subject: Re: GNU's not GNU... You just don't get it. I am not a lawyer, thank god, and this is my personal opinion not Apple's, but here goes. This crap about how Apple stole all this from Xerox etc. is not relevant. The issue is the expression of the idea, not the idea. For example, an analogy would be the Civil War. Gone with the Wind is copyrightable. You cannot recreate that expression of the Civil War without expecting to get sued. You are free to create and market/give away your own expression of the Civil War. If it looks like GWTW, smells like GWTW, or quacks like GWTW, the copyright holder for GWTW will probably sue you. From: shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro) Subject: Re: GNU's not GNU... Wrong! The issue is that Apple and Xerox have a licensing agreement so that Apple is protected from this sort of nonsense. Apple isn't stupid, just facist.