Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!edcastle!aiai!jeff From: jeff@aiai.uucp (Jeff Dalton) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: BISON, GCC, and the GNU public license. (Re: increasing yacc states) Message-ID: <738@skye.ed.ac.uk> Date: 15 Aug 89 15:02:17 GMT References:<26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26609@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5271@ficc.uu.net> <14699@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU> <95@euteal.ele.tue.nl> <714@skye.ed.ac.uk> <105@euteal.ele.tue.nl> Sender: news@aiai.ed.ac.uk Reply-To: jeff@aiai.uucp (Jeff Dalton) Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland Lines: 35 In article <105@euteal.ele.tue.nl> mart@ele.tue.nl (Mart van Stiphout) writes: >In article <714@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes: >>I use stuff from the net and GNU software all the time and it often >>works better than much of the commercial software I've used. So your >>experience is not universal. >We have several commercial packages at our side and they all work >well and have excellent support. So? I've used well-supported commecial software too. Nonetheless, the GNU stuff works better and is, in effect, better supported than quite a bit of the commercial software I've used. >>When you say "the easy parts", you make it sound like GNU software >>isn't very good and, indeed, rather trivial. Perhaps you think C >>compilers are trivial. Gcc is one of the best C compilers I've seen. > >Gnu starts out by relying on the vendor supplied !commercial! software >they despise. If they were honest guys, they would start off with writing >their own operating system. No, designing and manufacturing their own chips, and getting their own raw materials. Give me a break. >Anyone can write an editor or a diff remake or maybe even a C compiler. Hear that CS departments? No more practical courses. Maybe you can keep in business by teaching theory. Or can everyone do theoretical CS too? >Anayway I don't see why the gnu stuff must be better than commercial >software. Who said it must be better. But it's certainly not always worse. .