Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 05:36:03 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Cc: mike@smith.net.au, brett@lariat.org, pechter@shell.monmouth.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GNU software (was: "Open Source Town Meeting" supports only one faction) Message-ID: <199807220536.WAA06411@usr04.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19980722095017.F8098@freebie.lemis.com> from "Greg Lehey" at Jul 22, 98 09:50:17 am
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> bc cvs gdb gzip ptx tar binutils dc genclass ld rcs texinfo bison > dialog gperf man sdiff as cc diff grep patch send-pr awk cpio diff3 > groff perl sort > > Of these, I use frequently and believe we have no alternative source > of: > > cvs gdb gzip rcs texinfo bison grep patch awk groff perl sort Which of these are maintained by FSF? CVS was originally a non-GPL'ed comp.sources.unix posting. gdb -- well, I have to admit to using backtrace once in a while; however, there are much better (X-only, admittely) source debuggers available. gzip? -- use compress. RCS? Paul Eggert touched it last -- who's he work for? texinfo? Not needed. Bison? Use yacc instead; mostly needed for the non-standard grammars used by GNU make, GCC, GNU configure, etc.. Grep? There are free alternatives. patch? Larry Wall, NOT FSF. awk? Brian Kernighan's version is still actively maintained. perl? Larry Wall, NOT FSF. I would personally not miss it in the slightest; it's yet another syntax-incompatible scripting language. sort? This was a "conveniece" import, like taking GNU tar instead of (the superior) Berkeley "pax". That basically leaves "groff". And that's because the original free "troff" clone for C/A/T typesetting wasn't very good at PostScript. If I want printed copies, I'll buy them from O'Reilly; otherwise I'll use ditroff. > I also use Emacs and bash, both of which are GPLd. I have no > intention of even trying to change. Fine. Send in your check today... just don't sign my name for me without asking me... Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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