From: tower@AI.MIT.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.)
Newsgroups: gnu.announce
Subject: January 1990 GNUs Bulletin
Message-ID: <9002050743.AA01497@rice-chex>
Date: 5 Feb 90 07:43:13 GMT
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Lines: 1460
Approved: info-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
Posted: Mon Feb 5 08:43:13 1990
Here is the info-ized version of the latest GNUs Bulletin, which was
distributed at the Washington, DC Winter Usenix. It's essentially the
same except for typography and a few graphics.
If you would like a hardcopy, send your request to the FSF address
below (including a small donation to cover copying costs is
appreciated, but is not required). If you live in an area served by
the US Post Office, please also include a SASE (Self-Addressed Stamped
Envelope).
Please freely redistribute this text to other forums under the term of
the Copyright Notice below.
thanx -len
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GNU's Bulletin January, 1990
The GNU's Bulletin is the semi-annual newsletter of the Free Software
Foundation, bringing you news about the GNU Project.
Free Software Foundation, Inc. Telephone: (617) 876-3296
675 Massachusetts Avenue Electronic mail: gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents
********
GNU'S Who
What Is the Free Software Foundation?
What Is Copyleft?
GNUs Flashes
``Boycott Apple; Defend Apple'' by Richard Stallman
``League for Programming Freedom'' by Michael Bloom and Richard Stallman
``Online Book Initiative'' by Barry Shein
Common Knowledge's Universal Index
Late Flash: a gNU Support Company
GNU Wish List
GNU Project Status Report
Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
GNU Documentation
GNU Software Available Now
How to Get GNU Software
Thank GNUs
FSF Order Form
GNU's Who
*********
Joseph Arceneaux is working on Emacs version 19. Jim Kingdon is working
on GDB. Kathy Hargreaves is working on the regular-expression routines
`regex.c', Karl Berry is working on Ghostscript, and both Kathy and Karl
have been working on transforming character bitmaps into cubic splines,
so that GNU can include high-quality typefaces. Roland McGrath and Joy
Kendall spent last summer programming various GNU software. Mike Rowan
has just been hired as a programmer.
Mike Haertel is working on finishing the C interpreter started by
Nobuyuki Hikichi, in addition to continuing to maintain and improve
various utilities and library routines. David Lawrence is currently
expanding the GNU Emacs Lisp libraries. He is working for us at the
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Brian Fox is now working for us at Caltech. He has released the beta
version of Bash, the `Bourne Again SHell', and is now working on GNU's
daemon-based Finger. Jay Fenlason is writing the GNU spreadsheet
program Oleo, and maintaining `tar', `sed' and the GNU assembler. Jay
also takes care of our backups and creating distribution tapes.
Diane Barlow Close has written initial drafts of the documentation for
all of the small Unix utilities that have been completed for us and is
now working on a shell programming manual. Diane is the primary author
of the GAWK Manual. Mona Cosmos is working on an introductory user
manual (shell commands, files, etc.) and Grace Sylvan is working on a C
manual.
S. Opus Goldstein is still running our office. She now has an
assistant, Erica Brigid ni Judith, who answers the phone machine,
handles correspondence, and packs the orders. Robert J. Chassell is our
Treasurer. Besides dealing with foundation issues not related to
programming, he is working on an elementary introduction to programming
in Emacs Lisp.
Richard Stallman continues as a volunteer to do countless tasks,
including refining the C compiler, GNU Emacs, etc. and their
documentation. Finally, volunteer Len Tower continues as our electronic
JOAT (jack-of-all-trades), handling mailing lists and gnUSENET,
information requests, etc.
GNU's Bulletin
--------------
Copyright (C) 1990 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Written by: Jim Kingdon, Robert J. Chassell, Michael Bloom, Barry Shein,
Micheal Tiemann, Richard Stallman, and Leonard H. Tower Jr.
Illustrations: Etienne Suvasa
Japanese Translators: Mieko Hikichi, Nobuyuki Hikichi
Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of
this document as received, in any medium, provided that the copyright
notice and permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor
grants the recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted
by this notice.
What Is the Free Software Foundation?
*************************************
The Free Software Foundation is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on
copying, redistribution, understanding and modification of computer
programs. We do this by promoting the development and use of free
software in all areas of computer use. Specifically, we are putting
together a complete integrated software system named "GNU" (GNU's Not
Unix) that will be upwardly compatible with Unix. Some large parts of
this system are already working and we are distributing them now.
The word "free" in our name refers to two specific freedoms: first, the
freedom to copy a program and give it away to your friends and
co-workers; second, the freedom to change a program as you wish, by
having full access to source code. Furthermore, you can study the
source and learn how such programs are written. You may then be able to
port it, improve it, and share your changes with others.
Other organizations distribute whatever free software happens to be
available. By contrast, FSF concentrates on development of new free
software, building toward a GNU system complete enough to eliminate the
need to purchase a proprietary system.
Besides developing GNU, the Foundation has secondary functions:
producing tapes and printed manuals of GNU software, carrying out
distribution, and accepting gifts to support GNU development. We are
tax exempt; you can deduct donations to us on your tax returns. Our
development effort is funded partly from donations and partly from
distribution fees. Note that the distribution fees purchase just the
service of distribution: you never have to pay anyone license fees to
use GNU software, and you always have the freedom to make your copy from
a friend's computer at no charge (provided your friend is willing).
The Foundation also maintains a Service Directory: a list of people who
offer service for pay to users of GNU programs and systems. The Service
Directory is located in file `etc/SERVICE' in the GNU Emacs
distribution. Service can mean answering questions for new users,
customizing programs, porting to new systems, or anything else. Contact
us if you want to be listed or wish a copy.
After we create our programs, we continually update and improve them.
We release between 2 and 20 updates a year for each program. Doing this
while developing new programs takes a lot of work, so any donations of
pertinent source code and documentation, machines, labor or money are
always appreciated.
The board of the Foundation is: Richard Stallman, President; Robert J.
Chassell, Treasurer; Gerald J. Sussman, Harold Abelson and Leonard H.
Tower Jr., Directors.
What Is Copyleft?
*****************
In the section entitled "What Is the Free Software Foundation?" we state
that "you never have to pay anyone license fees to use GNU software, and
you always have the freedom to make your copy from a friend's computer
at no charge." What exactly do we mean by this, and how do we make sure
that it stays true?
The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public
domain. Then people who get it from sharers can share it with others.
But bad citizens can also do what they like to do: sell binary-only
versions under typical don't-share-with-your-neighbor licenses. They
would thus enjoy the benefits of the freeness of the original program
while withholding these benefits from the users. It could easily come
about that most users get the program this way, and our goal of making
the program free for *all* users would have been undermined.
To prevent this from happening, we don't normally place GNU programs in
the public domain. Instead, we protect them by what we call
"copylefts". A copyleft is a legal instrument that makes everybody free
to copy a program as long as the person getting the copy gets with it
the freedom to distribute further copies, and the freedom to modify
their copy (which means that they must get access to the source code).
Typical software companies use copyrights to take away these freedoms;
now we software sharers use copylefts to preserve these freedoms.
The copyleft used by the GNU project is made from a combination of a
copyright notice and the "GNU General Public License". The copyright
notice is the usual kind. The General Public License is a copying
license which basically says that you have the freedoms we want you to
have and that you can't take these freedoms away from anyone else. (The
actual document consists of several pages of rather complicated legalbol
that our lawyer said we needed.) The complete license is included in
all GNU source code distributions and many manuals, and we will send you
a copy on request.
We encourage others to copyleft their programs using the General Public
License; basically programs only need to include a few sentences stating
that the license applies to them. Specifics on using the License
accompany it, so refer there for details.
*"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we
should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of
ours."*
-Benjamin Franklin
GNUs Flashes
************
* Donation from Japan Unix Society
The Japan Unix Society has given us $10,000. They have also been
distributing Nobuyuki and Mieko Hikichi's translation of the GNU's
bulletin and have plans to distribute GNU software. We want to say
"Thank You," and encourage other user groups to support the
development of high quality free software.
* Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
We will publish the long awaited, and very long, `GNU Emacs Lisp
Reference Manual' in March 1990. The manual describes the GNU Emacs
Lisp programming language in detail.
* Long-named options
We have started adding long-named options to many of our utilities.
For example, instead of remembering whether to use `-v' or `-V',
you can use `+verbose' (or any unambiguous abbreviation) in all
programs. Eventually we hope to provide command-line completion
for long option names.
* `indent'
We have added some enhancements to the `indent' prettyprinter from
the 4.3BSD-tahoe free software release. GNU indent improvements
include removal of arbitrary limits, GNU coding style support, and
bug fixes.
* GNU compiler gaining acceptance
Many people are now using our C compiler, including the Open
Software Foundation (as part of their operating system); Data
General (for their Aviion 88000 based workstation); and Intel (for
their 960 microprocessor).
* GNU Chess defeats Fidelity Mach 3
A 10 game match was conducted between GNU Chess 1.55 running on a
Sun Sparcstation-1 and the strong commercial chess machine Fidelity
Mach 3. Fidelity Mach 3 is officially rated USCF 2265 (2200 is
master). Most observers acknowledge it is a true master. The
match result was 7-3 in GNU's favor. After various corrections, we
arrive at a putative rating of around 2330 (strong master) for GNU
Chess 1.55 on this machine.
This result was most unexpected since prior versions of GNU Chess
had scored no more than 3 points out of 10 against the Mach 3. The
big leap appears to come from: (1) the inclusion of Hans Eric
Sandstrom's fast move generator and (2) the Sparcstation-1, which
is (apparently) particularly suited to speedy chess processing.
Minor modifications to the book, draw factor, and thinking on
opponent's time have also helped.
Please remember this rating is based on a short match result.
Certain moves GNU Chess plays are clearly non-master in quality.
Computer masters generally achieve their strength through accuracy
of tactics, not subtle positional moves.
Boycott Apple; Defend Apple
***************************
by Richard Stallman
Most of the people I know in the computer field are disgusted with Apple
for its look-and-feel lawsuit. So, when they hear that Xerox has sued
Apple in the same way, they are usually delighted: now Sculley may get
what he deserves.
There is only one dark cloud in this inviting landscape: if Xerox wins,
the rest of us will also get what Sculley deserves.
In practical terms, a Xerox victory would have the same kind of effect
as a victory by Apple in its lawsuit against HP and Microsoft. If we
lose the freedom to develop and distribute window systems, it little
matters precisely who has taken it away. The dangerous precedent for
future cases on other kinds of software would likewise be the same.
However, Xerox as a monopolist could be worse in degree. Xerox was
involved in an earlier stage of window system development, so a Xerox
monopoly might cover a wider range of window systems than an Apple
monopoly.
For the GNU project, the practical result might be that we cannot have a
window system. We have been planning to use the X window system, but if
Xerox wins the suit, this could become illegal.
An additional danger in the Xerox suit is that public sympathy for
Xerox, due to resentment of Apple's own lawsuit and to Xerox's early
role in developing window system ideas, may help Xerox win.
This sympathy is misplaced. Xerox entered a competitive market
functioning under well-known rules: no one could copyright a user
interface. (As for ideas and techniques, copyright has never applied to
those.) They developed an interesting product that failed in the market
due to various mistakes---an event which is not unusual in business.
Now they wish to escape the consequences of their errors by changing the
rules retroactively. This is hardly fair.
In order for us to keep our freedom to write software, we must now
defeat Xerox as well as Apple. This means our task is now harder.
However, the Xerox lawsuit may aid us indirectly: the absurdity of this
mess of lawsuits may help convince the public that the whole idea of
look-and-feel copyright must be firmly rejected.
But being convinced is not enough; to end the danger of look-and-feel
suits, we must convince the courts and Congress. By expressing our
views in public, writing to the House Subcommittee on Intellectual
Property, or joining the League for Programming Freedom, we can put an
end to this wasteful legal contentiousness.
You can write to the subcomittee at:
House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property,
U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515
League for Programming Freedom
******************************
by Michael Bloom and Richard Stallman
The League for Programming Freedom is an organization of people who
oppose the attempt to monopolize common user interfaces through "look
and feel" copyright lawsuits. Some of us are programmers, who worry
that such monopolies will obstruct our work. Some of us are users,
who want new computer systems to be compatible with the interfaces we
know.
"Look and feel" lawsuits aim to create a new class of
government-enforced monopolies broader in scope than ever before.
Such a system of user-interface copyright would impose gratuitous
incompatibility, reduce competition, and stifle innovation.
We in the League hope to prevent these problems by preventing
user-interface copyright. The League is not opposed to copyright law as
it was understood until 1986---copyright on particular programs. Our
aim is to stop changes in the copyright system which would take away
programmers' traditional freedom to write new programs compatible with
existing programs and practices.
The League for Programming Freedom will act against the doctrine behind
look-and-feel suits by any means consistent with the law and
intellectual liberty. We will write editorials, talk with public
officials, file amicus curiae briefs with the courts, and boycott
egregious offenders. On May 24th, 1989, we picketed Lotus headquarters
on account of their lawsuits against competitors, stimulating widespread
media coverage for the issue. If you have other ideas, please suggest
them.
In the future, the League may also fight other restrictive practices,
such as software patents, which threaten to make every design decision
in software development a chance for a lawsuit. The League's founders
consider software patents potentially even more dangerous than
look-and-feel copyright, but it will be up to the members to decide
whether the League should campaign against them.
The League needs both activist members and members who only pay their
dues.
To join, write to:
League for Programming Freedom,
1 Kendall Square #143,
P.O.Box 9171,
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Phone: (617) 492-0023
Note that the League for Programming Freedom is a separate organization
from the Free Software Foundation; please direct all League inquiries to
the above address, not to the Foundation.
Online Book Initiative
**********************
by Barry Shein
The Online Book Initiative has been formed to make available freely
redistributable collections of information. There exist huge
collections of books, conference proceedings, reference material,
catalogues, etc., which can be freely shared. Some of it is in
machine-readable form, much of it isn't.
The purpose of the Online Book Initiative is to create a publicly
accessible repository for this information, a net-worker's library.
Information in the Online Book Repository will be available for free
redistribution. On-line access, magnetic media and other methods of
distribution will involve reasonable charges for the services provided,
not the information.
There are other organizations with similar overall goals (e.g. Project
Gutenberg, Common Knowledge); in some cases the details of their goals
or approaches are quite different. We are in contact with most of them
and in general our conversations are very positive. Anyone putting
textual information on-line soon develops an attitude of "the more, the
merrier;" it's a massive area of endeavor.
{What We Wish to Archive}
All on-line materials (other than software collections) such as books,
journals, catalogues, conference proceedings, magazines, manuals, maps,
images, technical documentation, reference works, etc. The only
software we are interested in is software specific to the viewing,
manipulation, searching and maintenance of information in the
repository.
Materials must be free of copyrights limiting redistribution by us or
any individual or organization who receives them. The Online Book
Initiative is dealing only with materials free of restrictive copyrights
because we don't want to be distracted by the complications they demand.
We also need pointers to collections of materials that may be available.
For example, there are government collections of interesting data which
are available at reasonable costs and do not limit further
redistribution of copies obtained.
{What We Need from You}
Beyond machine-readable material there are huge collections of printed
material which could be redistributed if put on-line. We need people
willing to organize informal projects to scan, type or otherwise get
this material on-line for inclusion in the Online Book Repository.
We need to get in touch with Library and Information Scientists
interested in helping us create formats and structures for organizing
the repository.
We need international participation to help ensure that our efforts are
useful to people everywhere.
We need people willing to participate in a Technical Advisory Board to
help us guide our efforts.
We need involvement from academia, industry and governments to help us
enrich this effort without bounds and make available a first-rate,
freely available information utility.
We need involvement from publishers who have materials that can be
included in the Online Book Repository. Many books and reference works
have become unprofitable to publish by ordinary paper means. It's time
to make these materials available!
We need involvement from the technical community to choose and implement
multi-media software standards such as hypertext, mark-up languages,
index and catalogue software, text retrieval, network access methods and
more. Standards are critical to our efforts.
{What We Are Offering}
`world.std.com' is a public access UNIX system which will serve as the
initial repository. It is a Sun4/280 system and will be expanded as
needed.
Anyone can dial into the system and set up an account if they wish
direct access (617-739-WRLD). Accounts are charged and proceeds will be
used to build the Online Book Repository.
UUCP and other links will be available for the redistribution of
collections. We will also make collections available on magnetic media
for reasonable copying charges.
{How to Get Involved}
If you think you can help or want more information send electronic mail
to `obi@world.std.com'. There are two mailing lists, one for general
discussion about Online Book Initiative issues and another which
receives announcements only (the general discussion list will see all
announcements so you only need to be on one). To subscribe to either,
mail a request to `obi-request@world.std.com'.
Or call us at Software Tool & Die, 617-739-0202.
Or drop by our office and chat if you're in the area: 1330 Beacon
Street, Brookline, MA 02146.
{Postscript}
This started as an informal discussion group that called themselves "The
KiloMonkeys Project" ("Strong Typing For Weak Minds") who wanted to
figure out how to get useful materials on-line and generally available.
I have decided to make Software Tool & Die a home for this activity and
formalize the project under the new name "The Online Book Initiative."
My thanks to that original group from Monkey Shein.
Common Knowledge's Universal Index
**********************************
There is an international group called Common Knowledge working to
compile public domain, copyright free and machine-readable information.
The group, consisting of journalists, scientists, librarians and others,
is amassing a database of non-copyrighted information which they call
the "Universal Index". They are doing this to provide an alternative to
the information merchants, who are increasingly successful at reducing
the amount of material available to traditional libraries. Their
address is:
Common Knowledge,
Jefferson, MD 21755, USA
Phone: (301) 695-3100
Late Flash: a gNU Support Company
*********************************
Cygnus Support has been organized as the first for-profit corporation
that provides commercial support *only* for free software, that we are
aware of. Their initial support package is for GNU program development
tools at sites with 50 to 150 seats. Contact
`cygint!tiemann@labrea.stanford.edu' or Cygnus Support, 814 University
Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301. (FSF is not affiliated with Cygnus Support;
note that numerous individual consultants are listed in the GNU Service
Directory in file `etc/SERVICE' in the GNU Emacs distribution.)
GNU Wish List
*************
Wishes for this issue are for:
* Someone skilled in compiler maintenance who could take over GCC
maintenance for RMS. This would probably be a full-time job.
* We are hiring both programmers and technical writers to work on
Project GNU. We want people who can do a good job and who are
willing to work for less money than most employers pay. You must
either be in Cambridge, Mass., or be able to maintain good
electronic communication with us. Contact `rms@ai.mit.edu' or send
mail to Richard Stallman c/o the Free Software Foundation if you
are interested.
* Volunteers to help write utilities and documentation. Send mail to
`gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu' for the task list.
* Professors who might be interested in sponsoring or hosting
research assistants to do GNU development, with full or partial FSF
support. Several schools have done this and we welcome others to
join in.
* Speech generation, speech recognition, and character recognition
software (if the devices aren't too weird), with the device drivers
if possible. This would help at least one partially disabled
programmer we know to be productive.
* Grammar checking software for English and other natural languages.
* Copies of newspaper and journal articles mentioning the GNU
Project. Send these to the address on the front cover, or send a
citation to `gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu'.
* Money, as always. Please remember, donations are tax-deductible.
With the latest donations, we have again been able to expand our
staff.
One way to give us a small amount of money is to order a
distribution tape or two. This may not count as a donation for tax
purposes, but it can qualify as a business expense.
GNU Project Status Report
*************************
* GNU Emacs
Except for bug fixes, work on Emacs version 18 has ceased. Emacs
19 is advancing and the new features we have added include multiple
X window capability, support for European character sets and
multiple fonts, enhanced visual aspects including scrollbars,
floating point numbers, a relocating memory allocator for buffers,
more sophisticated mouse support and use of function keys, and many
changes to the Lisp libraries.
Other features we are considering are associating property lists
and actions with regions of text, incremental syntax analysis for
programming languages, source-level debugging for Emacs Lisp, hooks
to be run if point moves outside a certain range, a more hyper-text
oriented Info mode, a mouse-help X window application, menu bars,
and possibly a new and improved pop-up menu system.
We don't know how much of this we will do before we make a release,
or when that release will be, so please don't ask. We will
announce it.
We will publish the `GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual' in March
1990.
* Kernel
We hope to use the Mach message-passing kernel being developed at
CMU. The current distributed version of Mach is not free because
it contains code from BSD of AT&T origin. However, the Mach
developers have been working to separate this code from the kernel
and they now say they have a first version of this running in alpha
test. Prof. Rashid assures us that when this version is stable, it
will be free.
Should Mach not become available, then we will start the kernel
with either MIT's TRIX kernel or Berkeley's Sprite system.
Right now, we aren't doing any kernel work. It does not make sense
for us to start a kernel project now, when we still hope to use
Mach.
* GNU Debugger
The GNU source-level C debugger, GDB, is now being distributed
along with Emacs version 18 as GDB version 2.8. GDB version 3.4 is
distributed on the beta-test (compiler) tape, and as soon as it is
stable it will replace version 2.8 on the Emacs tape.
When we have a stable release of GDB 3.x we will start work on GDB
4. We plan to add over-the-ethernet debugging, remote
cross-debugging, and Dalek extensions such as `if', `while', and
event-based debugging (see Crawford, Richard H., Ho, W. Wilson, and
Olsson, Ronald A., `A Dataflow Approach to Event-Based Debugging',
University of California at Davis, Davis, CA, CSE-89-7, May, 1989),
and other features.
Other features that we may add sometime are watchpoints, and the
ability to debug multi-threaded parallel programs.
* C Compiler
The GNU C Compiler, GCC, is now fairly reliable. People are still
reporting bugs, but they also say they think there are fewer bugs
than in commercial compilers. NeXT builds their entire system,
including their port of the MACH kernel and NFS, with GCC. Someone
has also told us that GCC successfully compiled a System V.3
kernel. Much of the BSD source tree has been compiled with GCC.
We are now working to stabilize GCC version 1 while incorporating
new improvements into version 2. Version 2 now has support for
nested functions, a certain amount of common subexpression
elimination between basic blocks, and a new feature for classifying
instructions that can be used to choose between long and short
branches, or to provide raw data for instruction scheduling.
Version 2 will support C`++' on the same basis as C itself. Also,
we expect to have instruction scheduling and perhaps global common
subexpression elimination. Ron Guilmette's Protoize, which
generates ANSI C prototypes, will be merged in.
We are currently implementing delayed-branch fill and pipeline
scheduling (experimentally). We may add facilities for
precompilation of header files to save time when they are large and
the source files are small.
We might also do other language front ends, but there seem to be
enough volunteer GNUers willing to do this job. Jukka Virtanen is
now working on the Pascal front-end. It is running, but before it
will be ready for alpha testing it needs some new features and the
ability to detect errors more gracefully. Other volunteers are
working on FORTRAN and Modula. So far, no one has volunteered to
write Ada or Cobol.
GCC has recently been ported to the Motorola 88000, Intel 860, and
Pyramid processors. Volunteers may be working on ports to the IBM
370, IBM PC/RT, 3B2, HP Spectrum, some sort of Gould machine, and
the AMD 29000.
* C Library
Roland McGrath and some others continue to work on the C Library.
The C library currently contains all of the ANSI C and POSIX.1
functions, and work is in progress on POSIX.2 and Unix features.
Doug Schmidt has provided an improved `qsort' which is faster than
Berkeley's and is also reentrant.
The C library is using a new `malloc' written by Mike Haertel.
* Preliminary Ghostscript
We are distributing Ghostscript, the free GNU software that
provides nearly all the facilities of a Postscript interpreter, on
our beta tape.
Karl Berry and Kathy Hargreaves are working on adding typefaces.
Beside typefaces, Ghostscript needs these enhancements: to serve as
a previewer for multi-page files; to serve other X clients by
drawing on their windows; to improve both its performance and
visual quality. Other suggestions for enhancements are welcome.
* Finger and Send
We soon will have a daemon-based Finger program. It polls a
selection of hosts and is thus able to tell you where each person
is logged in.
We are also testing a Send program for sending immediate messages
to other users across the net.
* Oleo
Jay Fenlason is writing a spreadsheet named Oleo (better for you
than the more expensive spreadsheet).
* GNU Mailer
We may use `smail', written by Landon Noll and Ronald Karr of
Amdahl, or `zmailer', which Rayan Zachariasen is writing, or
perhaps both.
* File Manipulation Utilities
We have a collection of utilities for file manipulation, including
`ls', `mv', `cp', `cat', `rm', `du', `head', `tail' and `cmp'. We
use these on our own machines and plan to release them soon.
* Possible Target Machines
GNU will require a CPU that uses 32-bit addresses and integers and
addresses to the 8-bit byte. Virtual memory will probably be
required.
GNU Emacs and GNU C require more than a meg of addressable memory
in the system, although a meg of physical memory may be enough if
there is virtual memory. 2 meg would make a noticeable improvement
in performance. Many source files need more than 1 meg of virtual
memory to compile.
A hard disk will be essential; at least 30 or 40 meg will be needed
to hold a minimal system. Plus more space for the user's files, of
course. We recommend at least 80meg for a personal GNU system, and
that would be fairly cramped.
Not that it will be impossible to adapt some or all of GNU for
other architectures; but we don't currently consider it part of our
job.
* Distribution of 80386 Floppies Still Planned
We are still considering distribution of 1.2 megabyte 5.25 inch
diskettes.
Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
*****************************************
Russ Nelson has a copylefted editor for MS-DOS called Freemacs. It is
one of the few editors that has a full extension language yet runs on
small machines. It is the only such editor that tries to be compatible
with GNU Emacs. For more information contact Russ via electronic mail
(`nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu') or paper mail (Russell Nelson, 11 Grant
St., Potsdam, NY, 13676).
Note that the Free Software Foundation does not distribute Freemacs;
please don't ask us about it.
GNU Documentation
*****************
GNU is dedicated to having quality easy-to-use on-line and printed
documentation. GNU manuals explain the underlying concepts, describe
how to use all the features of each program, and give examples of
command use.
GNU documentation is distributed as Texinfo source files. Texinfo
source yields both a typeset hardcopy and on-line presentations,
accessed by a menu-driven system.
The following manuals, provided with our software, are also available in
hardcopy; see the order form on the inside back cover.
The Emacs Manual describes how to use GNU Emacs. It also explains
advanced features, such as outline mode and regular expression search.
The manual tells how to use the special modes for programming in
languages such as C and Lisp, how to use the tags utility, and how to
compile and correct code. It also describes how to make your own
keybindings and make other elementary customizations.
The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, which will be released in March 1990,
describes the GNU Emacs Lisp programming language. An introductory
Emacs Lisp programming manual is also being written.
The Texinfo Manual describes how to write documents in Texinfo source
code. It describes the markup language used to create both an Info file
and a printed document from the same source file: how to make tables,
lists, chapters, nodes, indices and cross references. It also describes
how to use Texinfo mode in GNU Emacs and how to catch mistakes.
The Termcap Manual is often described as "Twice as much as you ever
wanted to know about Termcap." It describes the format of the Termcap
database, the definitions of terminal capabilities, and how to
interrogate a terminal description. This manual is primarily for
programmers.
The Bison Manual describes how to write a grammar description that Bison
can convert into a C program that can parse that grammar. This manual
assumes no prior knowledge of parser generators. It describes the
concepts and then provides a series of increasingly complex examples
before describing what goes on in considerable detail.
The GAWK Manual describes how to use the GNU implementation of AWK. It
is written for someone who has never used AWK before, and describes all
the features of this powerful string manipulating language.
The Make Manual describes the GNU Make utility, a program used to
rebuild parts of other programs when and as needed. The manual tells
how to write a makefile, which specifies how to recompile the parts of
your program and how they depend on each other.
The GDB Manual explains how to use GDB, the GNU Debugger. It describes
how to run your program under control of the debugger, how to examine
and alter data within the program, and how to modify the flow of control
within the program. It also explains how to use GDB through GNU Emacs,
with auto-display of source lines.
GNU Software Available Now
**************************
We now offer four Unix software source distribution tapes, plus VMS
tapes for GNU Emacs and GNU C that include sources and VMS executables.
The first Unix tape (called the "Release" or "Emacs" tape) contains GNU
Emacs as well as various other well-tested programs that we consider
reliable. The second Unix tape (called the "Beta test" or "Compiler"
tape) contains the GNU C compiler and related utilities, and other new
programs that are less thoroughly tested. The third and fourth Unix
tapes (called the "X11" tapes) contain the X11 distribution from the MIT
X consortium. See the order form, on the inside back cover, for details
about media, etc.
Note that the contents of the 1600bpi 9-track tapes and the QIC-24
DC300XLP 1/4 inch cartridge tapes are the same. It is only the media
that are different.
Contents of the Release Tape
----------------------------
The software on this tape is considered to be fairly stable, but as
always, we welcome your bug reports.
* GNU Emacs
In 1975, Richard Stallman developed the first Emacs: the
extensible, customizable real-time display editor. GNU Emacs is
his second implementation of Emacs. It's the first Emacs available
on Unix systems that offers true Lisp, smoothly integrated into the
editor, for writing extensions. It also provides a special
interface to MIT's free X window system, versions 10 and 11, which
makes redisplay very fast. The current version is 18.55.
GNU Emacs has been in widespread use since 1985 and often displaces
proprietary implementations of Emacs because of its greater
reliability as well as its good features and easier extensibility.
DEC, Berkeley, and NeXT are all distributing Emacs with their
systems. When Isaac Salzman set out to review various versions of
Emacs, only one company wanted their product to be compared with
GNU Emacs. In his review, which appeared in the July, 1989 issue
of Unix Review, Salzman concluded, "When it comes to Emacs, GNU is
the way to go."
GNU Emacs (as of version 18.55) runs on many kinds of Unix systems:
those made by Alliant, Altos 3068, Amdahl (UTS), Apollo, AT&T (3B
machines and 7300 pc), CCI 5/32 and 6/32, Celerity, Convex, Digital
(DECstation 3100; Vax running BSD or SysV), Dual, Elxsi 6400,
Encore (DPC, APC, and XPC), Gould, HP (9000 series 200, 300 or 800
(Spectrum) but not series 500), HLH Orion 1/05, IBM (RT/PC running
4.2 and AIX; PS2 running AIX), Integrated Solutions (Optimum V with
68020 and VMEbus), Intel 80386 (BSD, SysV, and Xenix; not MS-DOS),
Iris (2500, 2500 Turbo, and 4D), LMI (Nu), Masscomp, Megatest,
MIPS, NCR (Tower 32), Nixdorf Targon 31, Plexus, Prime, Pyramid,
Sequent (Balance and Symmetry), SONY News, Stride (system release
2), Sun (1, 2, 3, 4, SparcStation, and 386i), Tahoe, Tektronix
(NS32000 system & 4300), Texas Instruments (Nu), and Whitechapel
(MG1).
GNU Emacs is described by the `GNU Emacs Manual', which comes with
the software in Texinfo form. See "GNU Documentation" above.
* GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
We will publish the `GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual' and put the
Texinfo source on the release tape in March 1990. The manual
describes the GNU Emacs Lisp programming language in detail and is for
those interested in programming in GNU Emacs Lisp.
* Debugger
GDB 2.8 (GNU's Debugger) is the source-level C debugger written in
1986. It offers many features not usually found in debuggers on
Unix, such as Emacs-style command history and substitution, a
history that records all values examined within the debugger for
concise later reference, multi-line user-defined commands, and good
self-documentation.
GDB 2.8 currently runs on Vaxes under 4.2 and 4.3bsd, on Sun 3
under systems version 2, 3 and 4, on the SPARC (Sun 4) under
systems version 3.2 and 4.0, HP9K320, ISI, Merlin, SONY News, Gould
NPL and PN, i386, and on some 32000 systems. GDB 3.`*' supports
more systems and has some additional features; see "Contents of the
Beta Test Tape" below.
On-line help and a Texinfo manual for GDB comes with the software
(see "GNU Documentation" above).
* Bison
Bison is an upwardly compatible replacement parser generator for
Yacc, with additional features. It has been in use for several
years. Bison is used for compiling GNU C, so it is included on the
GNU beta tape as well. The `Bison Manual' comes with the software
in Texinfo form (see "GNU Documentation" above).
* X Window System, V10R4
Version 10 of X Windows is distributed on the GNU Emacs tape;
version 11 (which is totally incompatible) is distributed on the
two X11 tapes. GNU Emacs version 18.55 supports both versions 10
and 11.
* MIT Scheme
Scheme is a simplified, lexically scoped dialect of Lisp, designed
at MIT and other universities to teach students programming and to
research new parallel programming constructs and compilation
techniques. MIT Scheme is written in C and runs on many Unix
systems. It now conforms to the "Revised^3 Report On The
Algorithmic Language Scheme" (MIT AI Lab Memo 848a), for which TeX
source is included in the distribution. Another good source of
documentation for Scheme is "Structure and Interpretation of
Computer Programs", by Harold Abelson and Gerald J. Sussman with
Julie Sussman, the MIT Press & McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985.
* Yale T
A variant of Scheme developed at Yale University, T is intended for
production use in program development. T contains a native-code
optimizing compiler that produces code that runs at speeds
comparable to the running speeds of programs written in
conventional languages. It runs on BSD Vaxes and a few types of
68020 systems. T is written in itself and cannot be bootstrapped
without a binary (included), but it is great if you can use it.
Some documentation is included.
* `texi2roff'
`texi2roff' translates GNU Texinfo files into a format that can be
printed by the Unix [nt]roff programs utilizing the mm, ms or me
macro packages. It is included on both tapes so that people who
don't have a copy of TeX can print out GNU documentation.
* GNU Chess and NetHack
GNU chess is a chess program, now in its second major version. The
first was written by Stuart Cracraft. The second was written and
donated by John Stanback. If a successor is found that is
significantly stronger, it could become the new GNU Chess. GNU
chess has text-only and X display interfaces.
Hack is a display oriented adventure game similar to Rogue.
Contents of the Beta Test Tape
------------------------------
The programs on this tape are all recent releases and can be considered
to be at various stages of user testing. As always, we solicit your
comments and bug reports. This tape is also known as the Compiler tape.
* GNU CC
The GNU C compiler is a fairly portable optimizing compiler. It
generates good code for the 32000, 680x0 (optionally with 68881/2),
80386, 860, 88000, Alliant, Convex, Tahoe, and Vax CPUs, and for
these RISC CPUs: Pyramid, SPARC, and SPUR. The MIPS RISC CPU is
also supported. Machines using these CPUs include 386 running AIX,
Alliant FX/8, Altos 3068, Apollo 68000/68020 running Aegis, AT&T
3B1, Convex C1 and C2, DECstation 3100, DEC VAX, Encore MultiMax
(NS32000), Genix NS32000, Harris HCX-7 and HCX-9, HP-UX
68000/68020, HP running BSD, IBM PS/2 running AIX, Intel 386, Iris
MIPS machine, ISI 68000/68020, MIPS, NeXT, Pyramid, Sequent Balance
(NS32000), Sequent Symmetry (i386), SONY News, Sun 2, Sun 3
(optionally with FPA), Sun 4, SparcStation, and Sun386i. The
current version is 1.37. It supports full ANSI C as of the latest
proposed standard.
Optimizations include automatic register allocation, common
subexpression elimination, invariant code motion from loops,
induction variable optimizations, constant propagation and copy
propagation, delaying popping of function call arguments, tail
recursion elimination, plus many local optimizations that are
automatically deduced from the machine description.
Included with the compiler are Bison (also on the Emacs release
tape), and the perfect hash-table generating utility (Gperf), plus
the Texinfo source of the `GCC Manual'. This manual describes how
to run and install the GNU C compiler, and how to port it to new
processors. It describes new features and incompatibilities of the
compiler, but people not familiar with C will also need a good book
on C.
* Assembler and Object File Utilities
The GNU assembler (GAS) is a fairly portable, one pass assembler
that is almost twice as fast as Unix `as'. It now works for 32x32,
680x0, 80386, Sparc (Sun 4), and Vax.
We have free versions of `ar', `ld', `nm', `size', `gprof',
`strip', and `ranlib'.
The GNU linker `ld' runs significantly faster than the BSD version.
Our `ld' is the only one that will give you source-line numbered
error messages for multiply-defined symbols and undefined
references.
* COFF Support
It is possible to run the entire suite of GNU software tools on
System V, replacing COFF entirely. First you install the GNU
compiler, assembler, linker and other utilities. Then you use the
program `robotussin'---COFF medicine for your computer---to convert
the system libraries from COFF format to GNU (i.e. BSD) format.
When you compile programs, you will get ordinary GNU/BSD object
files. Linking these with the GNU linker will produce GNU/BSD
executables with a COFF header that the kernel will accept. The
other GNU utilities such as `size', `nm' and `strip' know how to
operate on these encapsulated files.
As true COFF support is peripheral to the GNU project, please don't
ask us to expend effort on it.
* `make'
GNU make includes almost all the features from the BSD, System V,
and POSIX makes, as well many of our own extensions, such as
parallelism, conditional execution, and text manipulation. Texinfo
source for a manual is provided; see "GNU documentation" above.
* Debugger
Version 3.`*' of GDB, the GNU debugger, runs under BSD 4.2 and 4.3
on Vaxes and Suns (2, 3, and 4), Convex, HP 9000/300's under BSD,
HP 9000/320's under HPUX, System V 386 machines (with either GNU or
native object file format), ISI Optimum V, Merlin under Utek 2.1,
SONY News, Gould NPL and PN machines, Sequent Symmetry (a 386 based
machine), Altos, and Encores under Umax 4.2.
GDB features incremental reading of symbol tables (for fast startup
and less memory use), command-line editing, the ability to call
functions in the program being debugged, a value history, and
user-defined commands. It can be used to debug C, C`++', and
FORTRAN programs.
GDB also provides for remote debugging over a serial line. Remote
debugging is the most convenient way to develop software for
systems which are too small to run a debugger; it allows you to
have the features of GDB at your disposal even on such systems.
* GAWK, FLEX and `tar'
GAWK is GNU's version of the Unix AWK utility; it comes with a
Texinfo manual (see "GNU Documentation" above). FLEX is a
mostly-compatible replacement for the Unix `lex' scanner generator
written by Vern Paxson of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. FLEX
generates far more efficient scanners than `lex' does. GNU `tar'
includes multivolume support, the ability to archive sparse files,
automatic compression and decompression of archives, remote
archives, and special features to allow `tar' to be used for
incremental and full backups of file systems.
* Freed Files from the U.C. Berkeley 4.3-tahoe Release
These files have been declared by Berkeley to be free of AT&T code,
and may be freely redistributed. They include complete sources for
some utility programs, games, library routines and partial sources
for many others.
* RCS
The latest version of the Revision Control System for version
control and management of large software projects.
* CVS
CVS, the Concurrent Version System written by Brian Berliner,
manages software revision and release control in a multi-developer,
multi-directory, multi-group environment. It is designed to work on
top of RCS Version 4, but will parse older RCS formats with the
loss of CVS's fancier features. For further details, see Berliner,
Brian, `CVS-II: Parallelizing Software Development,' Proceedings of
the Winter 1990 USENIX Association Conference.
* BASH
The GNU Shell, Bash (for Bourne Again SHell), provides
compatibility with the Unix `sh' and provides many extensions found
in `csh' and `ksh'. It has job control, `csh'-style command
history, command-line editing (with Emacs and vi modes built-in and
the ability to rebind keys).
* `diff' and `grep'
These programs are GNU's versions of the Unix programs of the same
name. They are much faster than their Unix counterparts.
* Ghostscript and `gnuplot'
Ghostscript is GNU's graphics language. It is almost fully
compatible with the PostScript language. It supports X version 11.
Right now, Ghostscript will accept commands in Postscript and
execute them by drawing on an X window.
Ghostscript also includes a C-callable graphics library (for client
programs that don't want to deal with the Postscript language), and
also supports IBM PCs and compatibles with EGA graphics (but please
don't ask the FSF staff any questions about this; we don't use PCs
and don't have time to learn anything about them).
`gnuplot' is an interactive program for plotting mathematical
expressions and data. Oddly enough, the program was neither done
for nor named for the GNU Project---the name is a coincidence.
However, we are distributing it anyway. If you can put us in
contact with the author of this program, please do!
* `g++', `libg++', NIH Class Library, and InterViews
G`++' is a set of changes for GCC that compiles C`++', the
well-known object-oriented language. This was the first compiler
to compile C`++' directly instead of preprocessing it into C, with
great benefits for debugging and efficiency. G`++' also was first
with multiple inheritance and other new features later released by
AT&T in `cfront 2.0'. Since G`++' depends on GCC, it must be used
with the correspondingly numbered version of GCC. GDB version
3.`*' includes support for debugging C`++' code, which merges in
the functionality of the old program GDB`+'.
`libg++' (the GNU C`++' library) is an extensive and documented
collection of C`++' classes and support tools for use with G`++'.
The NIH Class Library (formerly known as OOPS (Object-Oriented
Program Support)) is a portable collection of classes similar to
those in Smalltalk-80 that has been developed by Keith Gorlen of
NIH, using the C`++' programming language.
InterViews is an object-oriented, C`++' library to support the
design and implementation of window-based user interfaces for X11.
* GnuGo
GnuGo allows the user to play the machine in a game of Go
(Wei-Chi). It is an updated version of the program called Hugo.
Contents of the X11 Tapes
-------------------------
The two X11 tapes contain Version 11, Release 4 of the MIT X window
system. X11 is more powerful than, but incompatible with, the
no-longer-supported Version 10.
The first FSF tape contains the contents of both tape one and tape two
from the MIT X Consortium: the core software and documentation, and the
contributed clients. FSF refers to its first tape as the `required' X
tape since it is necessary for running X or GNU Emacs under X. (The
Consortium refers to its first two tapes as the `required/recommended'
tapes.)
The second, `optional' FSF tape contains the contents of tapes three and
four from the MIT X Consortium: contributed libraries and other
toolkits, the Andrew software, games, etc. (The Consortium refers to
its last two tapes as `optional' tapes.)
VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
----------------------------
We offer a VMS tape of the GNU Emacs editor, and a separate VMS tape
containing the beta-test GNU C compiler. The VMS compiler tape also
contains Bison (needed to compile GCC), GAS (needed to assemble GCC's
output) and some library and include files. Both VMS tapes include
executables that you can bootstrap from.
Note that the DEC VMS C compiler has bugs and thus cannot compile GNU C.
Please don't ask us to devote effort to additional VMS support, because
it is peripheral to the GNU project.
How to Get GNU Software
***********************
All the software and publications from the Free Software Foundation are
distributed with permission to copy and redistribute. The easiest way
to get GNU software is to copy it from someone else who has it.
If you have access to the Internet, you can get the latest software from
the host `prep.ai.mit.edu'. For more information, read the file
`/u/emacs/GETTING.GNU.SOFTWARE' on that host. Please note that the
internet address of `prep' has changed to `18.71.0.38'.
If you cannot get the software from a friend or over the net, or if you
would like to contribute some funds to our efforts and receive the
latest versions, the Free Software Foundation distributes tapes for a
copying and distribution fee. See the order form on the inside back
cover.
There are also third party groups that distribute our software: people
and organizations that do not work with us, but have our software in
other forms. For your convenience, some of them are listed below.
Please note that the Free Software Foundation is not affiliated with
them in any way, and is not responsible for either the currency of their
versions or the swiftness of their responses.
These Internet sites provide GNU software for anonymous FTP:
scam.berkeley.edu, itstd.sri.com, wuarchive.wustl.edu,
wsmr-simtel20.army.mil (under `PD:<UNIX.GNU>'), bu.edu,
bu-it.bu.edu, louie.udel.edu, nic.nyser.net, sauna.hut.fi,
sunic.sunet.se, freja.diku.dk, ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp,
cc.utah.edu (VMS GNU Emacs), and uunet.uu.net.
Those on the SPAN network can ask rdss::corbet.
Information on how to obtain some GNU programs using UUCP is available
via electronic mail from:
hao!scicom!qetzal!upba!ugn!nepa!denny, acornrc!bob,
hqda-ai!merlin, ames!killer!wisner, uunet!hutch!barber,
mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!ht!spt!gz, sun!nosun!illian!darylm,
oli-stl!root, or info@uunet.uu.net.
Ohio State also makes GNU programs available via UUCP. They post their
instructions monthly to newsgroup `comp.sources.d' on USENET. Current
details from Karl Kleinpaste `karl@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu' or
`...!osu-cis!karl'.
Information on getting floppy disks of GNU Emacs for the AT&T Unix PC
(aka 3B1 or PC7300) is available from: `brant@manta.pha.pa.us' or
`...!bpa!manta!brant'.
Thank GNUs
**********
Thanks to the Japanese Unix Society for their donation of $10,000.
Thanks to our Anonymous Contributor, and thanks to Hewlett-Packard for
their donations of a $100,000 each.
Thanks to Hewlett-Packard for their donation of six 68030 machines.
Thanks to all those mentioned in GNUs Flashes and the GNU Project Status
Report.
Thanks to Bil Lewis, Dan LaLiberte, and the volunteers who
have proofread drafts and suggested improvements to the `Emacs
Lisp Reference Manual'; and thanks to Warren Hunt of Computer
Logic Inc. for support.
Thanks to the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, and its director,
Professor Michael Dertouzos. LCS has provided FSF with the loan of a
Microvax for program development.
Thanks to the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for invaluable
assistance of many kinds.
Thanks to Arnold Robbins and Dave Trueman for their continued work on
`gawk' and the `gawk' manual.
Thanks to Brian Kernighan of AT&T Bell Labs for invaluable assistance
during the testing and debugging of `gawk', and for help in clarifying
several points about the language.
Thanks to Chris Welty and the Computer Science Department at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute for splitting Dave Lawrence's salary with FSF and
providing him computing facilities.
Thanks to Prof. Christof Koch and the CNS Lab at Caltech for their
support of Brian Fox and the use of their facilities.
Thanks to the University of Minnesota Department of Computer Science for
allowing Mike Haertel to use their computers.
Thanks to Information Systems and the Whitaker College Computing
Facility at MIT for use of their machines for making our VMS master
tapes.
Thanks go out to all those who have either lent or donated us machines,
including Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp. (TMC) for the Sun
4/110, K. Richard Magill for the AT&T Unix PC, Doug Blewett of AT&T
Bell Labs for two Convergent Miniframes, CMU's Mach Project for the Sun
3/60, Intel Corp. for their 386 workstation, NeXT for a NeXT
workstation, the MIT Media Laboratory for the Hewlett-Packard 68020
machine, and SONY Corp. and Software Research Associates, Inc., both of
Tokyo, for the SONY News workstations.
Thanks to all those who have contributed ports and extensions, as well
as those who have contributed other source code, documentation, and good
bug reports.
Thanks to those who sent money and offered help. Thanks also to those
who support us by ordering manuals and distribution tapes.
Free Software Foundation Order Form
***********************************
This form is effective January 1990--June 1990.
Prices and contents of tapes are subject to change without notice.
All software and publications are distributed with permission to copy
and redistribute.
TeX source for each manual is on the appropriate tape; the prices for
tapes do not include printed manuals.
All software from the Free Software Foundation is provided on an "as
is" basis, with no warranty of any kind.
Quantity Price Item
These four items for Unix systems,
on 1600 bpi 9-track tape in Unix tar format:
________ $150 GNU Emacs source code and other software.
The tape includes:
* GNU Emacs (the extensible, customizable, self-documenting
real-time display editor)
* MIT Scheme (a dialect of Lisp)
* T, Yale's implementation of Scheme
* Bison (a free, compatible replacement for yacc)
* Hack (a rogue-like game)
* GNU Chess (a chess playing program with an interface to X).
* GDB (release version of the GNU source-level C debugger)
* The X window system (a window system for bitmap
displays written at MIT) (version 10r4)
________ $150 GNU Beta Test software, for Unix systems.
The tape includes:
* GCC (the GNU C Compiler, including COFF support)
* G++ (the C++ front end to GCC)
* lib-g++ (the G++ class library)
* NIH Class Library (formerly known as OOPS)
* Interviews (C++ library to support X11 window systems)
* Bash (GNUs' Bourne Again SHell)
* Bison (a free, compatible replacement for yacc)
* Flex (Vern Paxson fast rewrite of lex)
* Ghostscript (a Postscript interpreter)
* Gawk (the GNU implementation of the AWK programming language)
* Gas (the GNU Assembler)
* GDB (beta version of the GNU source-level C debugger)
* Gnuplot (an interactive mathematical plotting program)
* Compress (a file compression program)
* RCS (Revision Control System)
* CVS (Concurrent Control System)
* GNU object file utilities (ar, ld, make, gprof, size, nm,
strip, ranlib, et al.)
* other GNU utilities (make, diff, grep, tar, et al.)
* Gnu GO (the GNU implementation of the game of GO)
* the freed files from the 4.3BSD-Tahoe distribution
________ $150 Required MIT X Window System X11R4, core software and
documentation, and contributed client software.
________ $150 Optional MIT X Window System X11R4, contributed software
including libraries, games, Andrew and toolkits.
These four items for Suns and other Unix Systems,
on QIC-24 DC300XLP 1/4 inch cartridge tape, Unix tar format:
________ $175 GNU Emacs and other software, as in the first item.
________ $175 GNU Beta Test tape, for Suns, as in the second item.
________ $175 Required MIT X Window System X11R4, as in the third item.
________ $175 Optional MIT X Window System X11R4, as in the fourth item.
These two items for VMS,
on 1600 bpi reel-to-reel 9-track tape in VMS BACKUP format:
________ $150 GNU Emacs source code and binaries.
________ $150 GNU C compiler source code and binaries.
Includes Bison and GAS.
The GNU Emacs manual, ~300 pages. The manual is phototypeset,
offset printed, and spiral bound; it includes a reference card.
________ $15 A single GNU Emacs manual.
________ $60 Box of six GNU Emacs manuals.
The following documentation:
________ $1 One GNU Emacs reference card, without the manual.
________ $5 Packet of ten GNU Emacs reference cards.
________ $50 Gnu Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, ~550 pages.
(Not available until March 1990).
________ $10 GDB Manual, ~70 pages, side stapled.
________ $10 Texinfo Manual, ~100 pages, side stapled. Texinfo is GNU's
structured documentation system, included with GNU Emacs.
Texinfo is used to produce both on-line and printed documents.
This manual describes how to write Texinfo documents.
________ $10 Termcap Manual, ~60 pages, side stapled. Documents the
termcap library and GNU's extensions to it. The GNU termcap
library is included with GNU Emacs.
________ $10 Bison Manual, ~80 pages, side stapled.
________ $10 Gawk Manual, ~100 pages, side stapled.
________ $10 Make Manual, ~100 pages, side stapled.
--------
________ Sub Total
________ If ordering from Massachusetts: add 5% sales tax.
________ If outside of North America and Hawaii, for shipping costs:
- for tapes or unboxed manuals, please add $15, and then add
$15 more for each tape or unboxed manual in the order:
________ total $ for this item = $15 + $15 times number;
- for each box of Emacs manuals,
________ please add $60.
________ Optional tax deductible donation.
--------
________ Total paid
Orders are filled upon receipt of check or money order. We do not have
the staff to handle the billing of unpaid orders. Please help keep
our lives simple by including your payment with your order.
Please make checks payable to Free Software Foundation. Mail orders to:
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-876-3296
EFFECTIVE: January 1990 to June 1990
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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675 Massachusetts Avenue | |
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enjoy -len