Re: Xy Manuals Online (Was undocumented define functions)

[Harmon Seaver hseaver@xxxxxxxx]

Peter Evans wrote:
>
> When I--I think it was me--first suggested or resuggested that TTG donated
> Xy3 to FSF, I must admit that I did so with as little thought as I usually
> muster when suggesting that people other than myself do charitable deeds. I
> know what FSF stands for and I like their copyleft statement, but (because
> I'm not a programmer and don't use any variety of UNIX) I'm only familiar
> with a very few of their productions. And of these, at least one (JWP, a
> Japanese text editor) is far from a paragon of efficient, bug-free coding.
> So I suppose I'd want to know a bit more about what FSF actually does, as
> well as what it stands for, before handing over a major dollop of dosh for
> the donation to it of XyAnything.

  You can't judge GNU stuff on the basis of one app -- what happens is
that first a project is accepted as a GNU project (and I'm not at all
sure that JWP was a GNU project, seems like it just had some GNU pieces
or was compiled on a GNU compiler), then, if funds are available,
someone (or several someones) get hired to write code. Usually, however,
many someones just contribute time and effort (but, of course, if it's a
decent job they can proudly proclaim their work on their resume, which
is why most public domain or copyleft stuff gets written anyway) and the
project either takes off and flys or dies, depending on the amount of
enthusiasim it generates.
 That's why Linux, for instance, is the fastest evolving OS on the
planet -- mucho enthusiasm -- whilst other projects whither on the vine.
So, just because the GNU name gets connected with it doesn't mean much,
either good or bad, but generally GNU stuff is pretty well done -- you
get a lot of "competition eating" syndrome at work -- or rather
"competition coding" -- the same sort of thing we see at work on this
list -- "No, no, you're wrong, it should be coded this way."

  But what makes any of you think Kenny Frank is going to give up XY3
anyway? Not too likely, since it's all assembler code that makes up the
bulk of XY4, and probably SmartVerbs as well. They give up the source
for XY3, they're giving up major source for everything since.

--
Harmon Seaver hseaver@xxxxxxxx hseaver@xxxxxxxx
=======================================================================
The fundamental delusion of humanity is that I am in here -- and you
are out there.
=======================================================================
Copyright, Harmon F. Seaver, 1997. License to distribute this post is
available to Microsoft for US$1,000 per instance, or local equivalent.
=======================================================================