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.

.