[comp.os.minix] yacc and/or lex for minix?

dgmowat@watmath.UUCP (09/16/87)

Does anyone have a public domain version of source for yacc or lex
for minix or messy dos? Or even for another OS if it is portable?

Or is it coming in the next version of minix?

Thanks...

---
dgmowat@watmath.waterloo.edu

daveb@laidbak.UUCP (Dave Burton) (09/18/87)

In article <14607@watmath.waterloo.edu> dgmowat@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mowat) writes:
>
>Does anyone have a public domain version of source for yacc or lex
>for minix or messy dos? Or even for another OS if it is portable?
>
>Or is it coming in the next version of minix?
>
>Thanks...
>
>---
>dgmowat@watmath.waterloo.edu


I don't know of any PD YACCs, but there is at least one cheap YACC out
there. Its name is "Bison" and is available for 25.00 from:

	The Austin Code Works
	11100 Leafwood Lane
	Austin, TX 78750-3409
	(512) 258-0785

I haven't used this product, but did buy the earlier version
(called yacc). It is a MSDOS product. If you really need a YACC
now, this may help. They also have lex for 25.00.

I have absolutely no connections with The Austin Code Works other
than as a normal customer.
-- 
--------------------"Well, it looked good when I wrote it"---------------------
 Verbal: Dave Burton                        Net: ...!ihnp4!laidbak!daveb
 V-MAIL: (312) 505-9100 x325            USSnail: 1901 N. Naper Blvd.
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sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu (fred sullivan) (09/18/87)

In article <14607@watmath.waterloo.edu> dgmowat@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mowat) writes:
>
>Does anyone have a public domain version of source for yacc or lex
>for minix or messy dos? Or even for another OS if it is portable?
>
There is a version of yacc called bison, distributed with GNU emacs.
It is available for anonymous ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu in the file
/u2/emacs/bison.tar.Z.  don't know how many problems there would be
porting it to minix.  I will probably try it eventually, if someone
else doesn't get to it first.  Given the usual GNU philosophy on memory
usage (I don't mean that as a criticism, so don't flame) there may be
problems making it work on small machines.  There are rumors of
something called lex2.  I don't know if it's public domain or not.  If
anyone has info on it please let me know.

Fred Sullivan
Department of Mathematical Sciences
State University of New York at Binghamton
Binghamton, New York  13903
Email: sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu

sbanner1@uvicctr.UUCP (S. John Banner) (09/21/87)

In article <14607@watmath.waterloo.edu> dgmowat@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mowat) writes:
>
>Does anyone have a public domain version of source for yacc or lex
>for minix or messy dos? Or even for another OS if it is portable?
>

There is also a subset of lex distributed with ckermit.  I have not
yet tried it under Minix, but it works fine under BSD, and MSDOS.  I
expect to be trying it fairly soon, just as soon as I have a chance
to finish upgrading to 1.2.

                      S. John Banner

...!uw-beaver!uvicctr!sol!sbanner1
...!ubc-vision!uvicctr!sol!sbanner1
ccsjb@uvvm
sbanner1@sol.UVIC.CDN

ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (09/22/87)

In article <14607@watmath.waterloo.edu> dgmowat@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mowat) writes:
>
>Does anyone have a public domain version of source for yacc or lex for minix...

There are YACC and LEX programs in the DECUS library, but I have not had
the time to check them out.  I also don't know about their legal status.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)

minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) (09/23/87)

In article <504@ast.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andrew S. Tanenbaum) writes:
>
>There are YACC and LEX programs in the DECUS library, but I have not had
>the time to check them out.  I also don't know about their legal status.
>
>Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)

The Decus C collection (Decus 11-SP-18) includes a version of Lex that
was written and copyrighted by Charles Forsythe.  (It is distributed with
his permission).  This implements a version of Lex roughly equivalent
to that available on Unix V6 -- i.e., it missing some features of the
current Unix Lex.  (I have the overall responsibility for Decus C
submissions.)

To my knowledge, there is no legal (i.e. public-domain or unrestricted)
version of Yacc available from Decus.  If you find one, I would greatly
appreciate knowing about it so that I can help Decus get it out of the
library.  A public repository of software such as Decus is a cooperative
endevor, and succeeds only if it maintains scrupulous standards of
honesty with respect to the owners of non-public-domain software,
such as Unix.

The above is my personal opinion and should not be construed as representing
the position of either Digital Equipment Corporation or Decus.

Martin Minow
decvax!minow
+1 (617) 493-9922

stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) (09/24/87)

In article <1150@laidbak.UUCP>, daveb@laidbak.UUCP (Dave Burton) writes:

> I don't know of any PD YACCs, but there is at least one cheap YACC out
> there. Its name is "Bison" and is available for 25.00 from:

The source for 'bison' is available free from GNU (Free Software
Foundation).  Hopefully Austin is suppling binary and the $25 is
a porting fee, otherwise they are violating the copyleft.
-- 
Stuart D. Gathman	<stuart@bms-at.uucp>
			<..!{vrdxhq|dgis}!bms-at!st that 

cw@varian.UUCP (Carl Weidling) (09/25/87)

In article <477@bms-at.UUCP>, stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes:
> In article <1150@laidbak.UUCP>, daveb@laidbak.UUCP (Dave Burton) writes:
> 
> > I don't know of any PD YACCs, but there is at least one cheap YACC out
> > there. Its name is "Bison" and is available for 25.00 from:
> 
> The source for 'bison' is available free from GNU (Free Software
> Foundation).  Hopefully Austin is suppling binary and the $25 is
> a porting fee, otherwise they are violating the copyleft.
> -- 
> Stuart D. Gathman	<stuart@bms-at.uucp>
> 			<..!{vrdxhq|dgis}!bms-at!stuart>

	As I understand it the Free Sofware Foundation did a free Yacc
called BISON, and also a free LEX still called "LEX".  I'm curious as to
why they changed the name of one and not the other, except that "Yacc"
lent itself to some word play as 'yak' and 'bison' are both ungulates
and nobody could think of something similar for 'lex' at the time.
	Anyway, Stuart D. Gathman says he hopes bison is being supplied
in binary, is that part of the requirement imposed by the Free Software
Foundation?  Did the FSF also provide LEX?  Weren't these posted to
Compuserve (I don't have a compuserve account but I heard from a friend

that they were there?).
	Assuming they are legally available are there other problems?
like do they work and are they documented?
Regards,
Carl Weidling

sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu (fred sullivan) (09/28/87)

In article <323@uvicctr.UUCP> sbanner1@uvicctr.UUCP (S. John Banner) writes:
>
>There is also a subset of lex distributed with ckermit.  I have not

A very small subset.  The regular expressions which are allowed consist of
single characters.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

Fred Sullivan
Department of Mathematical Sciences
State University of New York at Binghamton
Binghamton, New York  13903
Email: sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu

stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) (09/28/87)

In article <655@varian.UUCP>, cw@varian.UUCP (Carl Weidling) writes:

> 	Anyway, Stuart D. Gathman says he hopes bison is being supplied
> in binary, is that part of the requirement imposed by the Free Software
> Foundation?  Did the FSF also provide LEX?  Weren't these posted to

The requirement is that only binaries may be *charged* for.  Source must
be given away free.  Any fee charged for the binary is for the trouble
of porting the source to a particular environment.  Any binaries sold must
include a notice describing how to obtain the source for free.
-- 
Stuart D. Gathman	<stuart@bms-at.uucp>
			<..!{vrdxhq|dgis}!bms-at!stuart>

daveb@geac.UUCP (Brown) (09/28/87)

In article <727@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu (fred sullivan) writes:
>In article <323@uvicctr.UUCP> sbanner1@uvicctr.UUCP (S. John Banner) writes:
>>There is also a subset of lex distributed with ckermit.  I have not
>A very small subset.  The regular expressions which are allowed consist of
>single characters.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

  The program, called "Wart", is a DFA compiler, which just happens to
be a subset of a lexical analyzer.  It is small and fairly fast, and
is simple enough that both Dick McMurray & I have produced modified
versions (his is FAST, mine is just Fast but does nice diagnostics).
  It takes an input which is an integer, and in the Kermit
implementation happens to contain a character.
  Further information available on demand by mail, source available to
the Minix distribution after someone confirms it works properly (it
already runs on CP/M, v7, 4.2, sIII and Macintoshes, so it probably
works on Minix :-))
  --dave
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind)
 CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 |  every 6 months.

dca@kesmai.COM (David C. Albrecht) (09/29/87)

> > I don't know of any PD YACCs, but there is at least one cheap YACC out
> > there. Its name is "Bison" and is available for 25.00 from:
> 
There has been a discussion about this before.  Yes there is no 'public
domain' version of yacc.  Any versions that say otherwise are thefts of
AT&T proprietary code.  Bison is a separate derivation not involving any
AT&T code which is supposed to be if anything a superset of yacc.  The FSF's
software manifesto gets in the way with Bison, however, in a fashion which is
different than say, GNU emacs.  Since Bison uses a parser skeleton which
includes the same manifesto then any code you produce with it is covered by
said manifesto.  I don't know about you but I find someone else dictating the
uses and distribution of something I wrote particularly obnoxious.
It doesn't make Bison totally worthless but it certainly makes it only about
half as useful as it could be.

David Albrecht

elg@usl (Eric Lee Green) (09/30/87)

in article <477@bms-at.UUCP>, stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) says:
> The source for 'bison' is available free from GNU (Free Software
> Foundation).  Hopefully Austin is suppling binary and the $25 is
> a porting fee, otherwise they are violating the copyleft.

Read the copyleft again. As long as you provide the full source code
(including any porting modifications, which become property of the FSF
and thus come under the terms of the license), as well as the object
code, and do not attempt to prevent any further distribution, the GNU
licensing agreement allows you to charge everything you think the
market will bear. RMS mentions, either in the GNU Manifesto or the
licensing agreement, that there may spring up services which advertise
and duplicate GNU and charge a software fee for doing so, but as long
as they didn't consider GNU software to be proprietary and attempt to
restrict distribution, or remove his copyright notices/license
agreements, that was fine with him...

To recap: The "free" in "Free Software Foundation" means that you are
free to do anything you want with the software, with the understanding
that you must provide full sources (including any modifications), you
cannot in any way attempt to restrict further redistribution, and you
cannot remove FSF's notices.

--
Eric Green  elg@usl.CSNET       from BEYOND nowhere:
{ihnp4,cbosgd}!killer!elg,      P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509
{akgua,killer}!usl!elg        "there's someone in my head, but it's not me.ing