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- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- GNU's Bulletin June, 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
- Possible New Terms for GNU Libraries by Richard Stallman
- "League for Programming Freedom" by Michael Bloom and Richard Stallman
- Free Software Support
- GNU Project Status Report
- GNU Wish List
- GNU Documentation
- GNU Software Available Now
- Contents of the Emacs Release Tape
- Contents of the Pre-Release Tape
- Contents of the X11 Tapes
- VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
- How to Get GNU Software
- Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
- Thank GNUs
- FSF Order Form
- GNU's Who
- *********
- Joseph Arceneaux is developing Emacs Version 19. Jim Kingdon is
- working on GDB. Michael Rowan is writing a `login' replacement to
- work with `xdm'. Roland McGrath will again be on the payroll
- starting in July; he is finishing up the C library and maintains
- GNU make. David MacKenzie has been hired as a summer programmer
- and is maintaining the file utilities.
- Brian Fox is maintaining various programs that he has written,
- including the `readline' library, the `makeinfo' and Info programs,
- BASH, and the new GNU `finger'. Jay Fenlason continues with the
- GNU spreadsheet, Oleo, as well as maintaining `tar', `sed' and the
- GNU assembler.
- Mike Haertel continues work on the C interpreter; he is also
- maintaining and improving the "bin" utilities and species of
- `grep'. David Lawrence, who works for us at the Rensselaer
- Polytechnic Institute, is maintaining the Lisp libraries for Emacs.
- Kathy Hargreaves is now working on Ghostscript, having just
- finished making the regular expression routines mostly
- POSIX-compliant. Karl Berry is also working on Ghostscript.
- Amy Gorin has been hired as a documentation writer, starting with
- the manual for `tar'. Diane Barlow Close continues work on the
- `BASH Programming Manual'. Grace Sylvan is writing the `GNU C
- Reference Manual'.
- S. Opus Goldstein is still doing a great job running our office.
- Erica Brigid is answering phone calls, handling correspondence, and
- making distribution tapes. Robert J. Chassell, our Treasurer, is
- working on an elementary introduction to programming in Emacs Lisp,
- in addition to the many Foundation issues not related to
- programming.
- Richard Stallman continues as a volunteer who does countless tasks,
- including refining the C compiler, GNU Emacs, etc., and their
- documentation. Finally, volunteer Len Tower remains our electronic
- JOAT (jack-of-all-trades), handling mailing lists and gnUSENET,
- information requests, and the like.
- GNU's Bulletin
- --------------
- Copyright (C) 1990 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
- Written by: Michael Rowan, Robert J. Chassell, Richard Stallman,
- Leonard H. Tower Jr., and Michael Bloom
- Illustrations: Etienne Suvasa
- Japanese Edition: Mieko Hikichi and 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, working towards 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 previous 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 this also allows bad citizens to 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 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. 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
- ************
- * Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
- It's here! We are now shipping the long awaited `GNU Emacs
- Lisp Reference Manual'. It describes the GNU Emacs Lisp
- programming language in great detail. The manual is about 550
- pages and can be ordered from us for $50. Early drafts of
- this manual are still floating around from several years ago,
- mostly at `ftp' sites. We strongly urge you to update to the
- new version since the improvements are innumerable. (As
- always you can `ftp' the manual from the usual sources.)
- * Smalltalk
- GNU now has a Smalltalk system. It was written by Steve
- Byrne. We currently have Version 1.0 available on
- `prep.ai.mit.edu'. Version 1.1 should be out soon. GNU
- Smalltalk is based on the `"blue book"' definition of the
- Smalltalk language. It is written in highly portable C and
- runs on a number of UNIX machines (Version 1.1 will offer more
- ports than the current version, which only runs on 4 or 5
- machines). A graphical user interface is also planned.
- Response to the system has generally been very favorable,
- especially for a young system.
- * GNU Finger
- GNU Finger is now available. This is a daemon--based finger
- program that polls all of the hosts at a site for
- finger--related information. With GNU Finger, information can
- now be retrieved for a user on a site--wide basis instead of a
- host--specific basis. Our finger also displays bitmaps of
- users' faces where available. See "GNU Finger" under "GNU
- Project Status Report" for more information.
- * Donation from the Open Software Foundation
- We want to thank OSF for yet another donation of $25,000. It
- is also planning significant improvements for the GNU
- Assembler and binutils.
- * Long-named options
- As we have mentioned before, we are adding long-named options
- to many of our utilities. We have done this by adding
- functionality to our `getopt' library. `getopt_long' can now
- be used to parse long options as well as the normal
- single-lettered options allowed by the standard `getopt'. 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.
- * DBM replacement
- Version 1.3 of our `gdbm' library has been released. It is a
- replacement for the `dbm' and `ndbm' libraries. Our `gdbm'
- database is stored in one file which contains no large holes,
- supports read/write interlocking, handles keys and data of
- unlimited size, and provides routines supporting both the
- `ndbm' and `dbm' interfaces. These features separate `gdbm'
- from its proprietary predecessors.
- Possible New Terms for GNU Libraries
- ************************************
- by Richard Stallman
- We are considering changing the distribution terms for some GNU
- libraries, such as `libg++' and the (as yet unreleased) C library.
- The GNU General Public License was designed for utility programs,
- such as Emacs and GCC. It makes a sharp distinction between using
- the program and copying any part of it: Any program containing any
- significant portion of the GNU program must be freely
- redistributable to be permitted at all. However, merely using the
- program (for example, an editor) imposes no restriction on the work
- that is done with it.
- Libraries blur the distinction between modifying or adding to a
- program and simply using it. Linking a program with a library,
- without changing the library, is in some sense simply using the
- library, and analogous to running a utility program or application
- program. However, in a textual and legal sense, the linked
- executable is a combined work which is a derivative of the original
- library, and the ordinary General Public License treats it as such.
- As a result, developers of proprietary software have not used the
- GNU libraries.
- The goal of the Free Software Foundation is to promote the freedom
- to share software, for software developers and for users; we
- develop software for sharing as a means to this end. As a
- pragmatic matter, if the conditions for use of this software are
- such that most developers choose not to use it, then we don't
- achieve the goal. At the same time, if the conditions are so loose
- that people can use the software without much additional sharing,
- then we don't achieve the goal.
- It seems that the ordinary General Public License is too
- restrictive for libraries, and is discouraging their use rather
- than encouraging further sharing. However, it would not be best to
- do what proprietary software developers ask us to do---to permit
- completely unrestricted use of our libraries in proprietary
- software---because then the end users of that software wouldn't get
- a jot of additional freedom as a consequence of the use of our
- library. We need to find a proper middle ground.
- Our idea is to require the distributor of the proprietary
- executable to make the source to our library available along with
- the object files for the rest of the application. The user could
- then recompile the library (perhaps with changes) and relink to get
- a usable program. This way the user will, in some sense, get the
- benefit of the free status of the library within the executable.
- However, not all the details are settled, so we aren't announcing
- the precise new library terms just yet.
- 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 that would be 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---i.e., 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 that are 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. If you have other ideas, please suggest them.
- The League members are now voting on the question of opposing
- 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 more dangerous than
- look-and-feel copyright, and the members voting so far seem to
- agree. Final results will be known at the beginning of June.
- The more members we have, the more effective we will be. Even if
- you cannot donate any time, simply joining will make a difference.
- The dues are $42 for professionals, $21 for others, except students
- whose dues are $10.50. To join, write to:
- League for Programming Freedom,
- 1 Kendall Square #143,
- P.O.Box 9171
- Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
- Phone: (617) 492-0023.
- `league@prep.ai.mit.edu'
- 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.
- Free Software Support
- *********************
- The Free Software Foundation develops and distributes freely
- available software. Our goal is to help computer users as a
- community. We envision a world in which software is freely
- redistributable. This means software will be sold at a competitive
- market price rather than a monopoly established price; often, it
- will be given away. We see programmers as providing a service,
- much as doctors and lawyers now do---both medical knowledge and the
- law are freely redistributable entities for which the practitioners
- charge a distribution and service fee.
- To help you find support and other consulting services, we maintain
- a list of people who offer such services. We call this list the
- GNU Service Directory. This list is contained in the file
- `etc/SERVICE' in the GNU Emacs distribution. If you want to offer
- services, you can use this list to help make yourself known.
- (Contact us if you would like a copy of this directory or wish to
- be included.)
- Most of the listings in the GNU Service Directory are for
- individuals, but one is for Cygnus Support, which is the first
- for-profit corporation that we know of that provides support *only*
- for free software. Their address is `info@cygnus.com' or Cygnus
- Support, 814 University Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301. FSF is not
- affiliated with Cygnus Support, but we hope that Cygnus Support is
- a harbinger of the future.
- If you find a deficiency in any GNU software, we want to know. We
- maintain a considerable number of Internet mailing lists for making
- announcements, reporting bugs and for asking questions. The Emacs
- and GCC Manuals have chapters explaining where to send bug reports
- and what information to put in them. Incidentally, on the larger
- lists, it is not surprising to see an enquiry answered on the same
- day it is posted.
- These mailing lists are also gatewayed into USENET news. If your
- site receives USENET, you can follow these discussions using news
- software. To find out more about the `gnu.*' newsgroups, ask your
- system administrator.
- If you don't have Internet access, you can receive mail and USENET
- news with a UUCP connection. Contact either a system administrator
- at a local UUCP site, or UUNET Communications, which can set up a
- UUCP connection for a modest fee. (UUNET is a non-profit
- organization that provides network connections.) You can contact
- UUNET by e-mail at `info@uunet.uu.net' or by paper mail at:
- UUNET Communications Services,
- 3110 Fairview Park Drive - Suite 570,
- Falls Church, VA 22042
- Phone: (703) 876-5050
- When we receive a bug report, we will usually try to fix the
- problem in order to make the software better. This may help you in
- the long run; however, we may not provide you with immediate
- assistance. This is not and should not be our job. Our task is so
- large that we must focus on that which helps the community as a
- whole, such as developing and maintaining software and
- documentation. We mustn't let ourselves be sidetracked into
- helping individuals one by one. We do not have the resources.
- Thus, do tell us how an installation script doesn't work or where
- the documentation is unclear---but please don't ask us to help you
- install the software or figure out how to use it.
- If your bug report does not evoke a solution from us, you may still
- get one from the many other users who read our bug reporting
- mailing lists. Otherwise, use the Service Directory.
- GNU Project Status Report
- *************************
- * GNU Emacs
- GNU Emacs 18 is now stable. Only a few important bugs have
- been encountered since Version 18.55.
- Berkeley is distributing GNU Emacs with the 4.3 distribution,
- and numerous companies also distribute it.
- Version 18 maintenance continues and a new version, 18.56, is
- expected soon. It has no new features, however. Version 19
- approaches release with a host of new features: before and
- after change hooks; X selection processing (including
- CLIPBOARD selections); scrollbars; support for European
- character sets; floating point numbers; per-buffer mouse
- commands; interfacing with the X resource manager;
- mouse-tracking; Lisp-level binding of function keys; and
- multiple X windows (`screens' to Emacs).
- Thanks go to Alan Carroll and the people who worked on Epoch
- for generating initial feedback to a multi-windowed Emacs.
- Emacs 19 supports two styles of multiple windows, one with a
- separate screen for the minibuffer, and another with a
- minibuffer attached to each screen.
- More features of Version 19 are buffer allocation, which uses
- a new mechanism capable of returning storage to the system
- when a buffer is killed, and a new input system---all input
- now arrives in the form of Lisp objects.
- Other features being considered for Version 19 include:
- - Associating property lists with regions of text in a
- buffer.
- - Multiple font, color, and pixmaps defined by those
- properties.
- - Different visibility conditions for the regions, and for
- the various windows showing one buffer.
- - Incremental syntax analysis for various programming
- languages.
- - Hooks to be run if point or mouse moves outside a certain
- range.
- - Source-level debugging for Emacs Lisp.
- - Incrementally saving undo history in a file, so that
- recover-file also reinstalls buffer's undo history.
- - Static menu bars, and better pop-up menus.
- - A more sophisticated emacsclient/server model, which
- would provide network transparent Emacs widget
- functionality.
- * 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,
- Mach developers say that all this will be replaced with free
- code, or at least be moved into user processes. Mach will be
- free then. This version of Mach should be available in a
- couple of months (as of May 1990). Until this happens, and we
- see precisely what is available and on what terms, we can't
- say for certain whether we can use it.
- We will not use Mach unless we can share it with everyone, and
- all users can redistribute it. In particular, if an export
- control prevents distribution outside the US, we will not use
- it.
- If we can't use Mach, then we may start developing the GNU
- kernel with either MIT's TRIX kernel or Berkeley's Sprite
- system. TRIX is a remote procedure call kernel which runs and
- supports basic Unix compatibility at about the level of
- Version 7. It needs a lot of additional features. Sprite is
- at about the same architectural level as BSD Unix, but has a
- fancy distributed file system and process migration.
- * GNU Debugger
- The GNU source-level C debugger, GDB, is now being distributed
- along with the GNU C Compiler as GDB Version 3.5. Version
- 2.8, that used to be distributed on the Emacs tape, is now
- obsolete, and has been replaced by Version 3.5.
- We have also started work on GDB Version 4. We have added
- watchpoints, remote cross-debugging, and a host of minor
- features. We plan to add over-the-ethernet debugging before
- the initial release of Version 4.
- * C Compiler
- The GNU C compiler (GCC) Version 1 is now quite reliable. It
- supports ANSI standard C. NeXT builds its entire system,
- including its port of the Mach kernel and NFS, with GCC. We
- have also been told that GCC successfully compiled a System
- V.3 kernel. GCC has compiled almost all of the BSD source
- tree.
- GCC performs automatic register allocation, invariant code
- motion from loops, common subexpression elimination, induction
- variable optimizations, constant propagation and copy
- propagation, delaying popping of function call arguments, tail
- recursion elimination, and many local optimizations that are
- automatically deduced from the machine description.
- Supported CPUs include the 680x0, Vax, 32x32, 80386, 80860,
- Sparc (Sun 4), SPUR, Convex, MIPS, Tahoe, Pyramid, and
- Alliant.
- We are trying to stabilize GCC Version 1 while incorporating
- new improvements into Version 2. Version 2 now has support
- for nested functions, a certain amount of CSE between basic
- blocks, and a new feature for classifying instructions---which
- can be used to choose between long and short branches or to
- provide raw data for instruction scheduling. Instruction
- scheduling and perhaps global CSE will be added by the time
- Version 2 is finished. More general calling conventions are
- supported.
- Version 2 supports both C++ and Objective C on the same basis
- as C itself: the name of the source file selects the language.
- Michael Tiemann of Cygnus Support has written the C++ front
- end for GCC (which is available in Version 1 as G++). The
- front end for Objective C has been donated by NeXT. It will
- support the Motorola 88000, AMD 29000, IBM RT, and TRON.
- Ports for the IBM 370, the 3b2, the Ncube, a Gould machine (we
- don't know which one), and the HP Spectrum may be written.
- Front ends for Modula, Fortran and Pascal are being developed
- by volunteers. There are rumors about various other
- languages. So far, no one has volunteered to write Ada or
- Cobol.
- * C Library
- Roland McGrath and 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. This means that the library will have not only all
- of ANSI, POSIX 1003.1, and POSIX 1003.2, but almost everything
- found in BSD and System V.
- The GNU regular-expression functions (`regex') are now mostly
- conformant to the POSIX.2 standard.
- * Ghostscript
- We are distributing Ghostscript on tape. This program
- provides nearly all the facilities of a Postscript
- interpreter.
- Ghostscript release 1.4 is now available. Staff members Karl
- Berry and Kathy Hargreaves are working on preparing a new
- release of Ghostscript, together with Peter Deutsch, the
- original author of the program. Kathy and Karl are also
- working on producing free PostScript font files.
- Highlights of the new release include drivers for HP's Deskjet
- and Laserjet as well as the Epson LX-800 (all in low density
- mode). Ghostscript may be built with multiple drivers (e.g.
- an X Window driver and a printer driver), and you can switch
- between them dynamically.
- The new release also includes about 20 scalable fonts
- algorithmically derived from the BDF fonts in the X11
- distribution. These include Charter, Courier, Helvetica, New
- Century Schoolbook, Symbol, and Times fonts. All but the
- Symbol are provided in different variations.
- Right now, Ghostscript will accept commands in PostScript and
- execute them by drawing on an X Window or writing a file that
- can be transferred directly to a printer. It also includes a
- C-callable graphics library (for client programs that don't
- want to deal with the PostScript Language), and supports IBM
- PCs and compatibles with EGA graphics as well (but don't ask
- us about this; we don't use PCs and don't have time to learn
- anything about them).
- Ghostscript needs enhancements: to serve as a previewer for
- multi-page files; to serve other X clients by drawing on their
- windows; to be improved both in its performance and visual
- quality; and more fonts. Any suggestions for enhancements are
- welcome.
- * GNU Finger
- Brian Fox has released the new GNU Finger program. Finger is
- a daemon-based replacement for (or supplement to) BSD
- `finger'. Our finger now handles the newer paradigm of each
- user having his/her own small Unix host (workstation). GNU
- finger has a per site server that will poll all of the
- machines at a site. Thus queries can now be site wide rather
- than host specific. For example, fingering
- bfox@pogo.ai.mit.edu with our finger would tell you if he was
- logged in and what host he is using. If he isn't logged in,
- it will tell you what host he was last using.
- Our finger also does faces! If a site has face bitmaps online
- (and is running GNU Finger, of course) you can get the user's
- face in a X Window on your display.
- * Oleo
- Jay Fenlason is writing a spreadsheet named Oleo (which is
- better for you than the more expensive spreadsheet). Oleo is
- in alpha test right now; we do not know when it will be
- available. Jay says that "really brave" people can contact
- him about being alpha testers.
- Oleo currently reads and writes SC and Multiplan SYLK files,
- but teaching it new formats is fairly simple. It has a full
- set of expressions as well as mathematical, financial, and
- string functions. Keys may all be rebound and Oleo also has
- primitive macro support.
- Oleo uses the `curses' library and an X11 interface is
- planned. Right now it runs on BSD Unix machines as well as
- IBM PC's and compatibles.
- * groff
- James Clark is writing `groff', an implementation in C++ of
- the traditional Unix document formatting tools. So far
- `troff', `pic', `tbl', `eqn', `man' macros, and a PostScript
- driver have been written. A version of the Berkeley `me'
- macros will be included. He is currently implementing a
- driver which produces TeX `.dvi' format and a driver for
- typewriter-like devices. Useful additions would be `mm' and
- `ms' macros, `grap', and `refer'.
- * GNU Mailer
- Development of Smail is coming to an end. We are satisfied
- with the program's current features, except for the queueing
- system. We hope we can replace Smail's queueing system with
- the queueing system found in Zmailer. Otherwise a new one
- will have to be written.
- * File Manipulation Utilities
- We have added a collection of utilities for file manipulation
- to the Pre-Release tape. The collection includes `ls', `mv',
- `cp', `cat', `rm', `du', `head', `tail', `cmp', `chmod',
- `mkdir', and `ln'. These tools are either fully POSIX
- compliant or being worked on to become so. `cp' now has
- options to preserve the last-modification timestamp on copies,
- thus replacing some uses of `tar' or `cpio'.
- * Smalltalk
- Our Smalltalk system will be available in tape form when we
- release our "Experimental" tape in November. It is currently
- available via `ftp' on `prep.ai.mit.edu'. The current version
- is 1.1, with Version 1.2 expected to be out soon. Thanks to
- Steve Byrne who wrote our Smalltalk based on the `blue book'
- definition of the language.
- 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.
- * A Sun with a SCSI port to be donated or loaned so we can make
- distribution tapes. We also need machines to be donated or
- loaned for use by FSF programmers and documentation people who
- are not located near our offices in Cambridge.
- * 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.
- * Volunteers to help write utilities and documentation. Send
- mail to `gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu' for the task list and coding
- standards.
- * Speech and character recognition software (if the devices
- aren't too weird), with the device drivers (if possible).
- This would help the productivity of at least one partially
- disabled programmer we know.
- * Grammar checking software for English and other natural
- languages.
- * Copies of newspaper and journal articles mentioning the GNU
- Project or GNU software. 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 been able
- to expand our staff again. With the increased staff we have
- an even greater need for donations.
- 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 Documentation
- *****************
- GNU is dedicated to having quality, easy-to-use, on-line and
- printed documentation. GNU manuals are intended to 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 the use of GNU Emacs. It also explains
- advanced features, such as outline mode and regular expression
- search. The manual tells how to use 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 other elementary customizations.
- The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual covers the GNU Emacs Lisp
- programming language in great depth. It goes into data types,
- control structures, functions, macros, byte compilation, keymaps,
- windows, markers, searching and matching, modes, syntax tables,
- operating system interface, etc.
- The Texinfo Manual describes how to write documents in Texinfo
- source code. It explains the markup language used to create both
- an Info file and a printed document from the same source file.
- This tells you how to make tables, lists, chapters, nodes, indices,
- and cross references. It also describes how to use Texinfo mode in
- GNU Emacs and 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 the
- process of interrogating a terminal description. This manual is
- primarily for programmers.
- The Bison Manual covers writing grammar descriptions that can be
- converted into C coded parsers. 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 happens 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, 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. It covers
- makefile writing, which specifies how a program is to be compiled
- and what each part of the program depends on.
- The GDB Manual explains how to use the GNU Debugger. It describes
- running your program under debugger control, how to examine and
- alter data as well as modify the flow of control within the
- program, and how to use GDB through GNU Emacs, with auto-display of
- source lines.
- GNU Software Available Now
- **************************
- We offer 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 "Pre-Release"
- or "Compiler" tape) contains the GNU C compiler, 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.
- The GNU C compiler and various related programs are on a tape that
- we have called our "Beta Test" tape in the past. However, this
- software is becoming more stable; to reflect this change, we are
- renaming the tape the "Pre-Release" tape. (The tape also contains
- Ghostscript, which is not stable; for the moment, this is the best
- place to put it.)
- Sometime in the Fall, probably in early November, we will introduce
- a new beta test tape of "experimental" software. We will put new
- major, test releases of existing more-or-less stable programs such
- as GCC, Emacs, and GDB on this tape when they appear, as well as
- new programs such as Smalltalk and the C library. The contents of
- the "Experimental" tape will fluctuate because versions will move
- to the other tapes when they become stable. We are calling this
- the "Experimental" tape to prevent confusion with the older Beta
- tape.
- We will put Ghostscript on the "Experimental" tape when it appears.
- But as a convenience, we will continue to include it on the
- "Pre-Release" tape until the current order form expires in January
- 1991, even though this action is somewhat inconsistent with the
- tape naming conventions.
- Please do not order an "Experimental" tape until at least November,
- unless you see an announcement sooner than that on the net---we
- have put nothing on this tape as yet!
- 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 for UNIX systems
- are the same. It is only the media that are different.
- Contents of the Emacs Release Tape
- ----------------------------------
- The software on this release tape is considered fairly stable, but
- as always, we welcome your bug reports.
- * GNU Emacs
- In 1975, Richard Stallman developed the first Emacs, an
- 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.
- The current version of Emacs 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 additional 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 its 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."
- pGNU Emacs (as of Version 18.55) runs on many Unix systems:
- Alliant, Altos 3068, Amdahl (UTS), Apollo, AT&T (3B machines &
- 7300 PC), CCI 5/32 & 6/32, Celerity, Convex, Digital
- (DECstation 3100; Vax running BSD or System V), Motorola Delta
- (running System V/68 release 3), Dual, Elxsi 6400, Encore
- (DPC, APC, & XPC), Gould, HP (9000 series 200, 300 or 800
- (Spectrum) but not series 500), HLH Orion 1/05, IBM (RT/PC
- running 4.2 & AIX; PS2 running AIX), Integrated Solutions
- (Optimum V with 68020 & VMEbus), Intel 80386 (BSD, System V, &
- Xenix; not MS-DOS), Iris (2500, 2500 Turbo, & 4D), LMI (Nu),
- Masscomp, Megatest, MIPS, NCR (Tower 32), Nixdorf Targon 31,
- Plexus, Prime, Pyramid, Sequent (Balance & Symmetry), SONY
- News, Stride (system release 2), Sun (1, 2, 3, 4,
- SparcStation, & 386i), Tahoe, Tektronix (NS32000 & 4300),
- Stardent 1500 or 3000, Titan P2 or P3, Pmax, Texas Instruments
- (Nu), & Whitechapel (MG1).
- GNU Emacs is described by the `GNU Emacs Manual', which comes
- with the software in Texinfo form. See "GNU Documentation"
- above. Also, since GDB is the only debugger that can debug
- Emacs without losing its mind, it is included on this tape as
- well as the Pre-Release Tape.
- * GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
- We now include the Texinfo source to the `GNU Emacs Lisp
- Reference Manual' with Emacs. The manual describes the GNU
- Emacs Lisp programming language in detail and is for anyone
- who is interested in writing programs in GNU Emacs Lisp. See
- "GNUs Flashes" and "GNU Documentation" in this bulletin for
- more information.
- * Bison
- Bison is an upwardly compatible replacement for the parser
- generator 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 Pre-Release tape as well. The `Bison
- Manual' comes with the software in Texinfo form (see "GNU
- Documentation" above).
- * X Window System, V10R4
- We are no longer including a copy of X10 on our distribution
- tapes. It is no longer supported by MIT, so distributing it
- does not make sense. X Version 11 (currently release 4) is
- now pretty stable and available from us on two separate tapes.
- See "Contents of the X11 Tapes."
- * MIT Scheme
- Scheme is a simplified, lexically scoped dialect of Lisp. It
- was 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 speeds of programs
- written in conventional languages. It runs on BSD Vaxes,
- 680x0 systems, SPARC workstations, MIPS R2000 workstations
- (including the Decstation 3100 PMAX), and NS32000 machines
- (including the Encore Multimax). 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', written by Beverly Erlebacher, 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 all UNIX tapes so 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.
- NetHack is a display--oriented adventure game similar to
- Rogue.
- Contents of the Pre-Release Tape
- --------------------------------
- The programs on this tape are becoming almost stable. The
- exception is Ghostscript, but which we are carrying on this tape as
- a convenience until January 1991, when we will distribute it only
- on the "Experimental" tape. As always, we solicit your comments
- and bug reports. This tape is also known as the Compiler tape, and
- used to be known as the "Beta" 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. Please refer to
- the "GNU Project Status Report" for more detail on GCC.
- 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 is
- now at Version 1.35 and 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. The GNU tools can
- operate on BSD object files with a COFF header the System V
- kernel will accept. `robotussin' is supplied for converting
- standard libraries to this format.
- * `make'
- GNU `make' includes almost all the features from the BSD,
- System V, and POSIX versions of make, as well many of our own
- extensions. These extensions include parallelism, conditional
- execution, and text manipulation. Version 3 of GNU make is
- fairly stable and we do not anticipate a Version 3 release
- after 3.59. Work on Version 4---which will include many
- functional improvements---will begin sometime this summer.
- Texinfo source for the GNU make 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,
- Pyramid, 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.
- * 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, and command-line editing (with Emacs and vi
- modes built-in and the ability to rebind keys).
- * 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, and library
- routines; and partial sources for many others.
- * RCS and CVS
- The Revision Control System is used for version control and
- management of large software projects. This is the latest
- version (4.0).
- 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.
- * `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 that is almost fully
- compatible with PostScript. For more information on
- Ghostscript, please refer to the section on Ghostscript in the
- "GNU Project Status Report."
- `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.
- * `g++', `libg++', and NIH Class Library
- 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.
- Note that Interviews has been dropped from this tape since it
- appears on the "optional" X tape (See "Contents of the X11
- Tapes" below).
- * File Utilities and Miscellaneous
- The file utilities, which include the programs listed in the
- "GNU Status Report," are now included here. We also include
- `compress', `perl' (Version 3.0), `c-perf' (Version 2.0),
- `f2c' (a FORTRAN to C translator), and GnuGo (the game of Go
- (Wei-Chi)) on this tape.
- 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 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, because 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' is `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:
- they 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 via anonymous `ftp':
- scam.berkeley.edu, itstd.sri.com, wuarchive.wustl.edu,
- wsmr-simtel20.army.mil (under `PD:<UNIX.GNU>'), bu.edu,
- louie.udel.edu, nic.nyser.net, ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp,
- funic.hut.fi, sunic.sunet.se, freja.diku.dk,
- gatekeeper.dec.com, mango.miami.edu (VMS G++),
- 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 the following people. Ohio
- State also posts their UUCP instructions regularly to newsgroup
- `comp.sources.d' on USENET.
- hao!scicom!qetzal!upba!ugn!nepa!denny, acornrc!bob,
- hqda-ai!merlin, uunet!hutch!barber, sun!nosun!illian!darylm,
- oli-stl!root, bigtex!james, postmaster@uunet.uu.net, and
- karl@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (or `osu-cis!karl)'.
- Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
- -----------------------------------------
- Freemacs, a copylefted MS-DOS editor, is one of the few editors for
- small machines with a full extension language. It is the only such
- editor that tries to be compatible with GNU Emacs. For more
- information contact: `nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu', or: Russell
- Nelson, 11 Grant St., Potsdam, NY, 13676. $15 sent to that address
- will get you a copy. It is also available for `ftp' on
- `sun.soe.clarkson.edu'. Note that the Free Software Foundation
- does not distribute Freemacs; please don't ask us about it.
- Thank GNUs
- **********
- Thanks to all those mentioned in GNUs Flashes and the GNU Project
- Status Report.
- Thanks to the Japanese Unix Society for their large gift.
- Thanks to Delta Microsystems who just donated an Exabyte tape
- drive.
- Thanks again to the Open Software Foundation for their continued
- support.
- Thanks to Digital Equipment Corporation for their gift.
- Thanks to Bil Lewis, Dan LaLiberte, and the volunteers who worked
- on the `Emacs Lisp Reference Manual'. Also thanks to Warren A.
- Hunt, Jr. and Computational Logic, Inc. for their support.
- Thanks to the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory & MIT
- Laboratory for Computer Science for their invaluable assistance of
- many kinds.
- Thanks to Chris Welty as well as 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 of Caltech for his support of Brian
- Fox.
- Thanks to Prof. Paul Hilfinger of the UCB CS Department for
- allowing Roland McGrath to use UCB resources.
- Thanks to the University of Minnesota Department of Computer
- Science for allowing Mike Haertel to use their computers.
- Thanks to Cliff Lasser of Thinking Machines, Inc. for the help with
- upgrading to SunOS 4.0.
- Thanks to Village Center Inc and Nikkei Business Publishing, both
- of Japan, for their gifts.
- Thanks to Information Systems and the Whitaker College Computing
- Facility at MIT for use of their machines to make our VMS master
- tapes.
- Thanks go out to all those who have either lent or donated
- machines, including Hewlett-Packard for their donation of six 68030
- workstations, 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/i860
- workstation, NeXT for a NeXT workstation, the MIT Media Laboratory
- for the Hewlett-Packard 68020 machine, SONY Corp. and Software
- Research Associates, Inc., both of Tokyo, for three SONY News
- workstations, and the MIT Laboratory of Computer Science for the
- DEC Microvax.
- 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 June 1990--January 1991.
- 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
- 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)
- * The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, as source code.
- * MIT Scheme (a dialect of Lisp)
- * T, Yale's implementation of Scheme
- * Bison (a free, compatible replacement for yacc)
- * Nethack (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)
-
- ________ $150 GNU prerelease 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)
- * 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)
- * Perl (version 3.0; a programming language interpreter)
- * 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 GNU Experimental software. Not ready before Nov. 1990.
- ________ $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.
- 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 GNU Experimental software, as in the third item (Nov. 1990).
- ________ $175 Required MIT X Window System X11R4, as in the fourth item.
- ________ $175 Optional MIT X Window System X11R4, as in the fifth item.
- For VMS systems, 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.
- GNU Emacs manual, ~300 pages, phototypeset, offset printed, spiral
- bound, with 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.
- ________ $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 $ amount 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: June 1990 to January 1991
- Name:
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