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- GNU's Bulletin June, 1992
- 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?
- Free Software Support
- GNUs Flashes
- Patent Reform Is Not Enough
- What Is the LPF?
- LPF Ends Ashton-Tate Boycott
- U.S. Federal Database Bill
- Another Free Software Support Business
- The Hurd: the GNU Kernel Advances
- A Small Way to Help Free Software
- Project GNU Status Report
- A GNU Standard on Suns?
- Andrew Toolkit Stays Free
- GNU in Japan
- GNU Software Support Company in Japan
- GNU Documentation
- Project Gutenberg Looks for Volunteers
- Project GNU Wish List
- Please Support Free Software
- How to Get GNU Software
- GNU Software Available Now
- Contents of the Emacs Tape
- Contents of the Languages Tape
- Contents of the Utilities Tape
- Contents of the Experimental Tape
- Contents of the X11 Tapes
- Berkeley Networking 2 Tape
- VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
- Free Software for Microcomputers
- Thank GNUs
- Free Software Foundation Order Form
- GNU's Who
- *********
- Michael Bushnell is working on the GNU operating system and maintains GNU
- `tar'. Jim Blandy is preparing GNU Emacs 19, and Joseph Arceneaux is
- implementing active regions for a future GNU Emacs release. Roland McGrath is
- polishing the C library and maintains GNU `make'.
- Tom Lord is writing a graphics library and working on Oleo, the GNU
- spreadsheet. Brian Fox is improving various programs that he has written
- including `makeinfo', `info', the `readline' library, BASH, and is writing the
- `BASH Manual'. Jan Brittenson is working on the C interpreter and maintaining
- `finger'. Mike Haertel is making GNU `grep' POSIX compliant and beginning work
- on optical character recognition. David MacKenzie maintains most of GNU's small
- utilities--more programs than nearly everyone else combined.
- Kathy Hargreaves and Karl Berry are making fonts (and coordinating volunteers
- making fonts), developing utilities for dealing with them, and working on
- Ghostscript. Melissa Weisshaus is editing documentation and will work on the
- `GNU Utilities Manual'.
- Noah Friedman is our system administrator. Lisa `Opus' Goldstein continues to
- run the business end of FSF, with Gena Lynne Bean assisting in the office.
- Spike MacPhee assists RMS with legal assignments of software and other
- administrative tasks. Robert J. Chassell, our Secretary/Treasurer, also handles
- our publishing and is working on an introduction to programming in Emacs Lisp,
- in addition to many other tasks.
- Richard Stallman continues as a volunteer who does countless tasks, such as C
- compiler maintenance and finishing the `C Library Manual'.
- Volunteer Len Tower remains our on-line JOAT (jack-of-all-trades), handling
- mailing lists and gnUSENET, information requests, etc.
- GNU's Bulletin
- **************
- Written and Edited by: Jan Brittenson, Noah S. Friedman,
- Robert J. Chassell, Melissa Weisshaus, Richard Stallman,
- and Leonard H. Tower Jr.
- Illustrations: Etienne Suvasa
- Japanese Edition: Mieko Hikichi and Nobuyuki Hikichi
- The GNU's Bulletin is published twice annually. To get a copy, send your
- request to the address on the first page. If you live in an area served by the
- US Post Office, please also send a SASE (Self-Addressed Stamped Number 10
- Envelope), otherwise please include a preprinted mailing label. A small
- donation to cover copying costs is appreciated but not required.
- Copyright (C) 1992 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
- 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 pertains to freedom, not price. You may or may not
- pay a price to get GNU software. Either way, you have two specific freedoms
- once you have the software: first, the freedom to copy the program and give it
- away to your friends and co-workers; and second, the freedom to change the
- 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. (If you
- redistribute GNU software, you may charge a fee for the physical act of
- transferring a copy, or you may give away copies.)
- Other organizations distribute whatever free software happens to be available.
- By contrast, the Free Software Foundation concentrates on development of new
- free software, working towards a GNU system complete enough to eliminate the
- need for you to purchase a proprietary system.
- Besides developing GNU, FSF distributes copies of GNU software and manuals for
- a distribution fee, and accepts tax-deductible gifts to support GNU
- development. Most of FSF's funds come from its distribution service.
- The Board of the Foundation is: Richard M. Stallman, President;
- Robert J. Chassell, Secretary/Treasurer; Gerald J. Sussman, Harold Abelson, and
- Leonard H. Tower Jr., Directors.
- What Is Copyleft?
- *****************
- The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public domain,
- uncopyrighted. But this allows anyone to copyright and restrict its use
- against the author's wishes, thus denying others the right to access and freely
- redistribute it. This completely perverts the original intent.
- To prevent this, we copyright our software in a novel manner. Typical software
- companies use copyrights to take away your freedoms. We use the "copyleft" to
- preserve them. It is a legal instrument that requires those who pass on the
- program to include the rights to further redistribute it, and to see and change
- the code; the code and rights become legally inseparable.
- The copyleft used by the GNU Project is made from a combination of a regular
- copyright notice and the "GNU General Public License" (GPL). The GPL is a
- copying license which basically says that you have the freedoms discussed
- above. An alternate form, the "GNU Library General Public License" (LGPL),
- applies to certain GNU Libraries. This license permits linking the libraries
- into proprietary executables under certain conditions. The appropriate license
- is included in all GNU source code distributions and in many of our manuals.
- We will also send you a printed copy upon request.
- Note that the library license actually represents a strategic retreat. We would
- prefer to insist as much as possible that programs based on GNU software must
- themselves be free. However, in the case of libraries, we found that insisting
- they be used only in free software appeared to discourage use of the libraries
- rather than encouraging free applications.
- If the library license does promote the further use and development of free
- libraries by the developers of proprietary applications, we may consider
- putting more of the GNU Project libraries under it.
- We strongly encourage you to copyleft your programs and documentation, and we
- have made it as simple as possible for you to do so. The details on how to
- apply the GPL appear at the end of the GPL.
- Free Software Support
- *********************
- The Free Software Foundation does not provide any technical support. Although
- we create software, we leave it to others to earn a living providing support
- because we would rather concentrate on the former task. We see programmers as
- providing a service, much as doctors and lawyers now do; both medical and legal
- knowledge are freely redistributable entities for which the practitioners
- charge a distribution and service fee.
- We maintain a list of people who offer support and other consulting services,
- called the GNU Service Directory. It is in the file `etc/SERVICE' in the GNU
- Emacs distribution and `SERVICE' in the GCC distribution. Contact us if you
- would like a printed copy or wish to be listed in it.
- If you find a deficiency in any GNU software, we want to know. We have many
- Internet mailing lists for announcements, bug reports, and questions. They are
- also gatewayed into USENET news as the `gnu.*' newsgroups.
- If you have no Internet access, you can get mail and USENET news via UUCP.
- Contact a local UUCP site, or a commercial UUCP site such as:
- Anterior Technology,
- P.O. Box 1206,
- Menlo Park, CA 94026-1206
- USA
- Phone: (415) 328-5615 or Fax: (415) 322-1753
- E-mail: `info@fernwood.mpk.ca.us'
- UUNET Communications Services,
- 3110 Fairview Park Drive - Suite 570,
- Falls Church, VA 22042
- USA
- Phone: (703) 876-5050
- E-mail: `info@ftp.uu.net'
- When we receive a bug report, we usually try to fix the problem. While our bug
- fixes may seem like individual assistance, they are not. 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 do not have the
- resources to help individuals. 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
- report mailing lists. Otherwise, use the Service Directory.
- So, please do not ask us to help you install the software or figure out how to
- use it--but do tell us how an installation script does not work or where the
- documentation is unclear.
- *"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."*
- -Isaac Newton
- GNUs Flashes
- ************
- * Free Unix Emulator for Mach
- Randall Dean at CMU is finishing up a free BSD-based Unix emulator for
- Mach. It does not yet run reliably, but if it does become robust well
- before the Hurd is ready we will probably use it to create an early,
- completely free GNU system. We do not expect tape distribution of this
- emulator before the next issue of the GNUs Bulletin. Please don't ask us
- about this project; we will make an announcement when it is ready.
- Roland McGrath is porting the GNU C library to work with this emulator.
- * Berkeley Networking 2 Release
- The FSF now offers the BSD Networking 2 release on tape (see "Berkeley
- Networking 2 Tape" under "GNU Software Available Now").
- * Distribution Tapes Reorganized
- Our software distribution has been reorganized. The old Compiler tape has
- been split into a Languages and a Utilities tape. Some software has also
- moved from the Emacs tape to the other two tapes. In addition, we have a
- temporary Experimental tape. See "GNU Software Available Now."
- * FSF Distributing on Exabyte Cassettes
- We are now offering our software on 8mm Exabyte cassettes. For more
- information, see "FSF Order Form".
- * New Binding for GNU Manuals
- Several GNU manuals are now bound as soft cover books with a new
- "lay-flat" binding technology. This allows you to open them so they "lie
- flat" on a table without creasing the binding. Each book has an inner
- cloth spine and an outer cardboard cover that will not break or crease as
- an ordinary paperback will. Currently, the `GAWK', `Bison', `GDB', and
- `Emacs Lisp Reference' manuals have this binding. All other GNU manuals
- are also bound so they lie flat when opened, using other technologies.
- * GNU Fortran Mailing List
- A mailing list exists for those interested in the Fortran front end for
- GCC. To subscribe, ask: `info-gnu-fortran-request@prep.ai.mit.edu'.
- Meanwhile, the front end itself is rapidly approaching an alpha test state.
- * GNU in Russia Moves Forward
- Progress is being made on the GNU Project in Russia. The "Center for GNU
- Development" is translating GNU documentation into Russian. Recently, they
- finished the first version of a Modula-2-to-C translator. They are also
- working on an SQL database management system and on other projects.
- *"If I have not seen farther, it is because giants were standing on my
- shoulders."*
- -anonymous
- Patent Reform Is Not Enough
- ***************************
- by Richard Stallman
- When people first learn about the problem of software patents, their attention
- is often drawn to the egregious examples: patents that cover techniques already
- widely known. These techniques include sorting a collection of formulae so
- that no variable is used before it is calculated (called "natural order
- recalculation" in spreadsheets), and the use of exclusive-or to modify the
- contents of a bit-map display.
- Focusing on these examples can lead some people to ignore the rest of the
- problem. They are attracted to the position that the patent system is
- basically correct and needs only "reforms" to carry out its own rules properly.
- But would correct implementation really solve the problem of software patents?
- Let's consider an example.
- In April 1991, software developer Ross Williams began publishing a series of
- data compression programs using new algorithms of his own devising. Their
- superior speed and compression quality soon attracted users.
- The following September, when the FSF was about a week away from releasing one
- of them as the new choice for compressing our distribution files, use of these
- programs in the United States was halted by a newly issued patent, number
- 5,049,881.
- Under the current patent rules, whether the public is allowed to use these
- programs (i.e., whether the patent is invalid) depends on whether there is
- "prior art": whether the basic idea was published before the patent
- application, which was on June 18, 1990. Williams' publication in April 1991
- came after that date, so it does not count.
- A student described a similar algorithm in 1988--1989 in a class paper at the
- University of San Francisco, but the paper was not published. So it does not
- count as prior art under the current rules.
- Reforms to make the patent system work "properly" would be no help here. Under
- the rules of the patent system, this patent seems valid. There is no prior art
- for it. It is not close to obvious, as the patent system interprets the term.
- (Like most patents, it is neither worldshaking nor trivial, but somewhere in
- between.) The fault is in the rules themselves, not their execution.
- In the US legal system, patents are intended as a bargain between society and
- individuals; society is supposed to gain through the disclosure of techniques
- that would otherwise never be available. It is clear that society has gained
- nothing by issuing patent number 5,049,881.
- Under current rules, our ability to use Williams's programs depends on whether
- anyone happened to publish the same idea before June 18, 1990. That is to say,
- it depends on luck. This system is good for promoting the practice of law, but
- not progress in software.
- Teaching the Patent Office to look at more of the existing prior art might
- prevent some outrageous mistakes. It will not cure the greater problem, which
- is the patenting of every *new* wrinkle in the use of computers, like the one
- that Williams and others independently developed.
- This will turn software into a quagmire. Even an innovative program typically
- uses dozens of not-quite-new techniques and features, each of which might have
- been patented. Our ability to use each wrinkle will depend on luck, and if we
- are unlucky half the time, few programs will escape infringing a large number
- of patents. Navigating the maze of patents will be harder than writing
- software. As `The Economist' says, software patents are simply bad for
- business.
- If you'd like to do something, the easiest thing to do is to join the
- League for Programming Freedom.
- What Is the LPF?
- ****************
- The League for Programming Freedom (LPF) aims to protect the freedom to write
- software. This freedom is threatened by "look-and-feel" interface copyright
- lawsuits, and by software patents. The LPF does not endorse free software or
- the FSF.
- The League's members include programmers, entrepreneurs, students, professors,
- the FSF, and even some software companies.
- >From the League membership form:
- The League for Programming Freedom is a grass-roots organization of
- professors, students, business people, programmers, and users dedicated to
- bringing back the freedom to write programs. The League is not opposed to
- the legal system that Congress intended--copyright on individual programs.
- Our aim is to reverse the recent changes made by judges in response to
- special interests.
- Membership dues in the League are $42 per year for programmers, managers
- and professionals; $10.50 for students; $21 for others.
- To join, please send a check and the following information:
- * Your name and phone numbers (home, work or both).
- * The address to use for League mailings, a few each year (please
- indicate whether it is your home address or your work address).
- * The company you work for, and your position.
- * Your email address, so the League can contact you for political
- action. (If you don't want to be contacted for this, please say so,
- but please give your email address anyway.)
- * Please mention anything about you which would enable your
- endorsement of the LPF to impress the public.
- * Please say whether you would like to help with LPF activities.
- The address is:
- League for Programming Freedom
- 1 Kendall Square - #143
- P.O. Box 9171
- Cambridge, MA 02139
- USA
- Phone: (617) 243-4091
- Email: `league@prep.ai.mit.edu'
- If you haven't made up your mind yet, write to LPF for more information, or
- send Internet mail to `league@prep.ai.mit.edu'.
- LPF Ends Ashton-Tate Boycott
- ****************************
- Ashton-Tate (now a subsidiary of Borland) has offered to drop its
- "look-and-feel" lawsuit against Fox. In response, the League for Programming
- Freedom has dropped its boycott of Ashton-Tate products.
- U.S. Federal Database Bill
- **************************
- A bill before Congress, H.R. 2772, would have the Government Printing
- Office (GPO) create a Wide Information Network for Data Online (WINDO),
- allowing individual users to subscribe to a number of Federal databases,
- including: the FDA Bulletin Board, the Economic Bulletin Board, the SEC's EDGAR
- database of corporate disclosure filings, the Patent and Trademark Office's
- Automated Patent System, the "Federal Register," the "Congressional Record,"
- the House of Representatives' LEGIS system, the Library of Congress' SCORPIO
- system, the Department of State press briefings and Congressional Testimonies,
- and many other U.S. Federal government information systems.
- The GPO would administer the service for a low user dissemination-based charge,
- providing access through most common access methods, including by dial-up modem
- and over the Internet. User feedback would be greatly encouraged. Bill H.R.
- 2772 was introduced by Rep. Charlie Rose (D-NC) in June 1991. To support the
- bill, write or call your congressman. Also write or call Rep. Rose to show
- your support and send a copy to the Taxpayer Assets Project. For more
- information on WINDO, you can contact:
- American Library Association Taxpayer Assets Project
- Washington Office P.O. Box 19367
- 110 Maryland Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20036
- Washington, DC 20002-5675 USA
- USA Tel: (202) 387-8030
- Tel: (202) 547-4440 Fax: (202) 234-5176
- Fax: (202) 547-7363 Bitnet: `love@pucc'
- Internet: `508-0621@mcimail.com'
- Joint Committee on Printing
- 818 Hart Senate Bldg.
- Washington, DC 20510
- USA
- Tel: (202) 224-5241
- Fax: (202) 224-1176
- Another Free Software Support Business
- **************************************
- by Russ Nelson, Crynwr Software, `nelson@crynwr.com'
- The Crynwr packet driver collection, a finalist in PC Magazine's 1991 Awards
- for Technical Excellence, is copylefted software. The packet drivers are a mix
- of PC Ethernet drivers and shims to other driver software. Packet drivers are
- used natively by nearly all TCP/IP software and can also be used with Novell's
- NetWare, Banyan Vines, and Performance Technology's PowerLAN. After nearly
- four years, the list of contributors stretches almost two pages. My firm,
- Crynwr Software, six months old, is the sole support for my family, selling
- packet driver support. Crynwr Software is another example of a successful
- business venture based on copylefted software.
- *"In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with
- the giants on whose shoulders we stand."*
- -anonymous
- The Hurd: the GNU Kernel Advances
- *********************************
- Development is continuing on the kernel-related aspects of the GNU Operating
- System. This job consists of writing a set of servers, called the GNU Hurd,
- that run on top of the Mach 3 microkernel from CMU. The Mach microkernel
- provides a task abstraction with multiple threads within a single task and
- powerful IPC and virtual memory systems. Work is proceeding well on our
- implementation of the BSD Fast Filesystem, and we hope to be able to bootstrap
- a minimal system this summer.
- One of the advantages to the GNU Hurd is that it allows ordinary users to write
- programs which insert themselves into the directory hierarchy in a secure
- fashion. Using this idea, we will eventually implement a variety of
- interesting "filesystems." A simple example is transparent FTP, but there are
- also ideas like a transparent tar archive. (Just think, all you will need do
- is `cd' into a tar archive and do an `ls', instead of remembering incantations
- like `tar tfv foo.tar'.) There are even stranger ideas people have thought up;
- this design choice turns out to be surprisingly fruitful. This is a
- characteristic of the Hurd which is not supported by any other free or
- nearly-free operating systems, and only a very few commercial systems (none of
- which look anything like Unix).
- We are not sure at this point whether the initial alpha test release will have
- network support in it; this will depend on staffing considerations. If it does
- not, then implementing the network will be the top priority after the alpha
- release. The plan is to write a library which will enable network modules from
- a BSD kernel (many of which are now free) to be "dropped in" and used with only
- minimal modification, though more work would be needed to enable such a network
- server to get maximal performance.
- Source compatibility with 4.4 BSD and POSIX.1 will be provided by the GNU C
- Library. In addition, binary compatibility will be provided on some machines
- using the system call emulation facilities of Mach. Further, a great number of
- functions, done in Unix by the kernel, will be done in the C library. This
- allows users who dislike some of the precise semantics of a system call to
- easily replace it in their programs. Calls such as those which change signal
- state can be implemented entirely in the library and become much faster as well.
- We have a mailing list to discuss the design of Hurd. Experts in OS design and
- seasoned Unix wizards are welcome to help hash out the details of the
- interface.
- A Small Way to Help Free Software
- *********************************
- If you find that GNU software has been helpful to you, and in particular if you
- have benefitted from having sources freely available, please help support the
- spread of free software by telling others. For example, you might say in
- published papers and internal project reports:
- "We were able to modify the `fubar' utility to serve our particular needs
- because it is free software. As a result, we were able to finish the XYZ
- project six months earlier."
- Let users, management, and friends know! And send us a copy. Thanks!
- Project GNU Status Report
- *************************
- * GNU Software Configuration Scheme
- To allow GNU software to compile and run on a large number of platforms,
- it is often necessary to include platform-specific code to handle
- different situations. It is then useful to know the type of platform on
- which you are going to build the software. We are now ironing out the
- details of a uniform scheme for configuring GNU software packages in order
- to compile them. This will make it possible to configure any and all GNU
- software in the same way. In particular, all GNU software will support
- the same naming scheme for machine types and system types.
- The configuration scheme will enable you to configure a directory
- containing several GNU packages with one command. When we have a complete
- system, it will be possible to configure everything at once, eliminating
- the need to learn how to configure each of the individual programs that
- make up the GNU system.
- For tools used in development, the configuration scheme lets you specify
- both the host system and the target system, so you can configure and build
- cross-development tools easily.
- GCC Version 2 and GDB Version 4 support the new configuration scheme, as
- do many of the smaller programs and collections. Over the coming year, we
- will change our other software to support it.
- * GNU Emacs
- Version 19 will enter beta test late this year. Among its new features
- are: `before' and `after change hooks', source-level debugging of Emacs
- Lisp programs, X selection processing (including clipboard selections),
- scrollbars, support for European character sets, floating point numbers,
- per-buffer mouse commands, X resource manager interfacing, mouse-tracking,
- Lisp-level binding of function keys, multiple X windows (`screens' to
- Emacs), a new input system, and buffer allocation, which uses a new
- mechanism capable of returning storage to the system when a buffer is
- killed.
- The input stream is now a sequence of Lisp objects, instead of a sequence
- of characters. This allows a reasonable representation for mouse clicks,
- function keys, menu selections, etc.
- Thanks go to Alan Carroll and the people who worked on Epoch for
- generating initial feedback to a multi-windowed Emacs, and to Eric Raymond
- for help in polishing the Emacs 19 Lisp libraries.
- Emacs 18 maintenance continues for simple bug fixes.
- * C Compiler
- The GNU C compiler (GCC) version 1.40 is current; 1.41 is expected soon.
- GCC supports both ANSI standard and traditional C, as well as the GNU
- extensions to C.
- Version 1 is stable, but still maintained with bug fixes. It supports
- these CPU types: 680x0, VAX, 32x32, 80[34]86, SPARC (Sun-4), SPUR, Convex,
- MIPS, Tahoe, Pyramid, and Alliant. It supports both `a.out' and COFF
- format object files when used with a suitable assembler.
- Version 2 of GCC is in beta test (see "Contents of the Experimental Tape")
- and includes front-ends for C++ and Objective-C. New front ends are being
- developed, but they are not part of GCC yet. A front end for Ada is being
- funded through the Ada 9X standards committee. Since it is a quite
- complex language, we expect completion to take a while. A front end for
- Fortran is now being integrated, but this will also not be available soon.
- Volunteers are developing front ends for Modula-3 and Pascal. There are
- mumblings about other languages, but no one has volunteered to do Cobol
- yet.
- * Binutils
- Steve Chamberlain and others at Cygnus Support have rewritten the binary
- utilities (including the linker). These are now based on the same Binary
- File Descriptor library used by GDB. All the tools can be run on a host
- that differs from the target (e.g. cross-linking is supported).
- Furthermore, various forms of COFF and other object file formats are
- supported. A tool can deal with object files in multiple forms at once.
- For example, the linker can read object files using two different formats,
- and write the output in a third format. The linker interprets a superset
- of the AT&T Linker Command Language, which allows very general control
- over where segments are placed in memory.
- Version 1.94 is currently in beta test. Major changes are not expected.
- Per Bothner, `bothner@cygnus.com', coordinates the release.
- * C Library
- Roland McGrath continues to work on the C Library. It now conforms to
- ANSI C-1989 and POSIX.1-1990, and work is in progress on POSIX.2 and Unix
- functions (BSD and System V). In the Hurd, it will do much of what the
- system calls do in Unix. Roland is working on this code and has written
- alot of it already. Mike Haertel has written a fast `malloc' which wastes
- less memory than the old GNU `malloc'. The GNU regular-expression
- functions (`regex') now mostly conform to the POSIX.2 standard. A manual
- for the library (including the "system calls") is mostly written.
- GNU `stdio' lets you define new kinds of streams, just by writing a few C
- functions. The `fmemopen' function uses this to open a stream on a
- string, which can grow as necessary. You can define your own `printf'
- formats to use a C function you write; and there is a way to safely use
- format strings from user input, for example to implement a `printf'-like
- function for another programming language. Extended `getopt' functions
- are already used to parse options, including long options, in many GNU
- utilities.
- Version 1.03 runs on Sun-3 & Sun-4 (SunOS 4.1) and HP 9000/300 (4.3 BSD).
- Version 1.04 will include a complete port for MIPS DECstations (Ultrix
- 4.2), and improved support for the i386/i486 (System V & BSD).
- * GNU Debugger
- The GNU source-level C and C++ debugger, GDB, is now being distributed
- along with the GNU C Compiler.
- GDB Version 4.5 is in beta test. New machine ports include the IBM
- RS/6000, AMD 29000, and Intel 960. Object files and symbol tables are now
- read via a Binary File Descriptor library, which allows a single copy of
- GDB to debug programs of multiple object file types such as `a.out' and
- COFF. Other new features include improvements to the command language,
- watchpoints (breakpoints triggered when the value of an expression
- changes), exception handling (when used with GCC version 2) and support
- for SunOS shared libraries and C++ multiple inheritance.
- * JACAL
- Aubrey Jaffer is preparing a new release of JACAL, a symbolic mathematics
- system for the simplification and manipulation of equations and
- single-and-multiple-valued algebraic expressions constructed of numbers,
- variables, radicals, and algebraic functions, differential and finite
- differential operators, and holonomic functions. In addition, vectors and
- matrices of the above objects are included.
- JACAL runs under either Common Lisp or Scheme. A version of Scheme (IEEE
- P1178 and R4RS compliant) written in C comes with JACAL. It runs under
- VMS, MS-DOS, Unix, and similar systems. Pre-release source is available
- for anonymous FTP from `martigny.ai.mit.edu' under `/archive/scm' in
- `jacal0-4.tar.Z' and `scm3c13.tar.Z'.
- The FSF is not distributing JACAL on tape yet. To receive an IBM PC
- floppy disk with the source and executable files, send $60.00 ($65.00 for
- i386) to: Aubrey Jaffer, 84 Pleasant St., Wakefield MA 01880 USA.
- * Ghostscript
- The current version of Ghostscript is 2.4.1. Features include: the
- ability to specify device resolution and output file (including piping)
- from the command line; many new output devices and file formats, including
- PBM/PGM/PPM, GIF, and PCX; many more Postscript Level 2 facilities;
- improved character rendering; and incorporation of the standard Adobe font
- metrics into the Ghostscript fonts.
- Ghostscript 2.4.1 accepts commands in Postscript and executes them by
- drawing on an X window, writing a file that you can print directly, or
- writing directly to a printer. GNU volunteer Tim Theisen,
- `ghostview@cs.wisc.edu', has created a previewer for multi-page files,
- called Ghostview, on top of Ghostscript.
- Ghostscript includes a C-callable graphics library (for client programs
- that do not want to deal with the Postscript language). It also supports
- IBM PCs and compatibles with EGA, VGA, or SuperVGA graphics (but do not
- ask the FSF staff any questions about this; we do not use PCs).
- * groff
- James Clark has completed `groff' (GNU `troff' and related programs).
- Version 1.05 is now available (see "Contents of Utilities Tape"). `groff'
- is written in C++. It can be compiled with GNU C++ Version 1.40.3 or
- later.
- Future bugs in `groff' will be fixed, but no new development is currently
- planned. However, `groff' users are encouraged to continue to contribute
- enhancements. Most needed are complete Texinfo documentation, a `grap'
- emulation (a `pic' preprocessor for typesetting graphs), a page-makeup
- postprocessor similar to `pm' (see `Computing Systems', Vol 2, No. 2), and
- an ASCII output class for `pic' so that `pic' can be integrated with
- Texinfo.
- James would like to thank everybody who has contributed bug reports.
- Please continue to send them to `bug-groff@prep.ai.mit.edu'
- * GNU Graphics
- GNU Graphics is a set of programs which produce plots from ASCII or binary
- data. It supports output to Tektronix 4010, Postscript, and the X Window
- System or compatible devices.
- A new version of GNU Graphics has begun alpha testing. Improvements
- include: a revised manual; new features in `graph', `xplot' and `plot2ps';
- support for output in ln03 and TekniCAD TDA file formats; a replacement
- for the `spline' program; examples of shell scripts using `graph' and
- `plot'; the addition of a statistics toolkit; and the use of `configure'
- for installation.
- Existing ports need retesting. Contact Rich Murphey, `Rich@rice.edu', if
- you can help test/port it to anything other than a SPARCstation.
- * Texinfo 2
- The Texinfo 2 package includes an enhanced Texinfo mode for GNU Emacs, new
- versions of the formatting utilities, and the second edition of the
- `Texinfo Manual' (which is more complete than the first edition and
- describes over 50 new commands). Texinfo mode now includes commands for
- automatically creating and updating nodes and menus, a tedious task when
- done by hand. New utilities include `makeinfo', a standalone formatter,
- and `info', a standalone Info reader. Both are written in C and are
- independent of GNU Emacs. Texinfo 2 is in late beta test.
- A GNU Standard on Suns?
- ***********************
- Sun Microsystems was one of the pioneers of so-called "open systems". They are
- now leading the industry in a new way: they are the first major Unix
- workstation vendor to announce that they will not ship a C compiler with their
- Unix operating system. Other Unix workstation vendors have announced that they
- will follow suit.
- Sun's decision to remove their compiler has created a unique opportunity to
- make GNU C the new standard C compiler for Sun workstations. Cygnus Support, in
- cooperation with the Free Software Foundation and other free software
- developers, has announced plans to port GNU C and other required software (GNU
- `as', `gdb', and possibly `ld') to the Solaris platform.
- Cygnus is looking for 150 subscribers, each of them to contribute $2000 (about
- the cost of a compiler license from Sun for three CPUs), to fund the necessary
- work. (Subscribers will also get commercial support for a year.) The results,
- when completed, will be free software like the rest of the GNU system. Also,
- $75,000 of the funds raised is to be donated to the FSF.
- This is the first attempt to raise funds for free software development by
- asking for users to subscribe in advance. For more info, contact Cygnus
- Support at (415) 322-3811 or send mail to `solaris-compiler@cygnus.com'.
- Andrew Toolkit Stays Free
- *************************
- The Andrew Toolkit is both an extensible, object-oriented toolkit for graphical
- user interfaces and a package of applications. The most widely-used
- application is the Andrew Message System (AMS). The Toolkit is distributed on
- FSF's `optional' X Windows tape.
- Not long ago, several people asked whether the Toolkit would stay free. It
- will. The Andrew Toolkit Consortium plans to continue to make versions of the
- Toolkit and the AMS freely usable and distributable. However, there is (as
- there has always been) a catch: members of the Consortium get updates sooner
- and more frequently than the rest of us. This provides Consortium members with
- another incentive to continue as members.
- GNU in Japan
- ************
- Mieko, `h-mieko@sra.co.jp', and Nobuyuki Hikichi, `hikichi@sra.co.jp', continue
- to work on the GNU Project in Japan. They translate GNU information, write
- columns, request donations, and consult about GNU. They have translated
- Version 1 of the GNU General Public License into Japanese.
- Japanese versions of Emacs and Epoch are available. Both of them, `nemacs'
- (Nihongo Emacs) and `nepoch' (Nihongo Epoch), are widely used in Japan.
- Mule (the MULtilingual Enhancement of GNU Emacs) is a version of Emacs that can
- handle many character sets at once. Eventually, the features it provides will
- be merged into the FSF version of Emacs. Ken'ichi Handa, `handa@etl.go.jp', is
- beta testing MULE; you can FTP sources from `sh.wide.ad.jp:/JAPAN/mule' or
- `etlport.etl.go.jp:/pub/mule'.
- If you can, please order GNU software directly from the FSF; every 150 tape
- orders allows FSF to hire a programmer for a year to create more free software.
- Otherwise, many groups in Japan are distributing GNU software, including JUG (a
- PC user group), Nikkei Business Publications and ASCII (publishers), and the
- Fujitsu FM Towns users group. Anonymous UUCP is also now available in Japan;
- for more information contact `toku@dit.co.jp'. The FSF does not distribute
- `nemacs' or `nepoch'.
- The Village Center, Inc. has printed a Japanese translation of the `GNU Emacs
- Lisp Reference Manual' and also uploaded the Texinfo source to various bulletin
- boards. They are donating part of the revenue generated by distributing the
- manual to FSF. Their address is: Kanda Amerex Bldg. 2F 1-16, 3-Chome,
- Misaki-Cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101.
- A group connected with the commercial personal computer network in Japan is
- writing and distributing a copylefted hardware (circuit diagram) design and
- associated software that uses a MIPS-architecture based CPU. The OS, called
- `t2', is a subset of Unix using GCC and GDB as the system's compiler and
- debugger.
- GNU Software Support Company in Japan
- -------------------------------------
- People in Japan can now contact a company for GNU software support; the company
- is named Wingnut (Fax only: +81-3-3954-5174). The organizers were inspired by
- the GNU Manifesto. Wingnut will provide two services: porting and customizing
- GNU software, and answering technical questions (including how to install the
- software).
- *"In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."*
- -anonymous
- GNU 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, which yield both typeset
- hardcopy and on-line hypertext-like presentation via the menu-driven Info
- system. The manuals, provided with our software, are also available in
- hardcopy; see the "FSF Order Form" inside the back cover.
- The Emacs Manual describes the use of GNU Emacs. It also explains advanced
- features, such as outline mode and regular expression search, and how to use
- special modes for programming in languages like C and Lisp.
- The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual covers the GNU Emacs Lisp programming language
- in great depth, including data types, control structures, functions, macros,
- syntax tables, searching and matching, modes, windows, keymaps, byte
- compilation, markers, and the operating system interface.
- The Emacs Calc Manual includes both a tutorial and a reference manual for Calc.
- It describes how to do ordinary arithmetic, how to use Calc for algebra,
- calculus, and other forms of mathematics, and how to extend Calc.
- The Texinfo Manual explains the markup language used to generate both the
- online Info documentation and hardcopies. It tells you how to make tables,
- lists, chapters, nodes, indexes, cross references, how to use Texinfo mode in
- GNU Emacs, and how to catch mistakes.
- The GDB Manual explains how to use the GNU Debugger, including how to run your
- program under debugger control, how to examine and alter data, how to modify
- the flow of control within the program, and how to use GDB through GNU Emacs.
- 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 manipulation language.
- The Bison Manual teaches how to write context-free grammars that convert into
- C-coded parsers. You need no prior knowledge of parser generators.
- The Make Manual describes GNU `make', a program used to rebuild parts of other
- programs. The manual covers writing `makefile's, which specifies how a program
- is to be compiled and its dependencies.
- The Termcap Manual, often described as "Twice as much as you ever wanted to
- know about Termcap," details 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.
- Project Gutenberg Looks for Volunteers
- **************************************
- Project Gutenberg encourages the creation and distribution of English language
- electronic texts. Their goal is to provide a collection of 10,000 of the most
- used books by 2001. They need a few volunteers to help find copyright
- information about the books they wish to use as sources for electronic editions.
- If you want to help with this (or in any other way), please contact Mary Brandt
- Jensen at `mjensen@charlie.usd.EDU' or (605) 677-6363.
- Project GNU Wish List
- *********************
- Wishes for this issue are for:
- * Volunteers to distribute this Bulletin at trade shows and technical
- conferences. Please call the phone number on the front cover to make
- arrangements.
- * Disk drives to give us more space to develop our software.
- * One 386 or 486 PC-AT compatible with at least 200 meg of hard disk and an
- Ethernet card.
- * The following equipment:
- * Sun QIC-150 cartridge tape drive.
- * 300+ meg SCSI disk(s) for a Sun-3.
- * 300+ meg SCSI disk(s) for a SONY News workstation.
- * a floppy disk copying and verification machine.
- * a 19" equipment rack.
- * an Exabyte tape drive.
- * Sun-3 workstations.
- * Core memory for and a board to add a monochrome monitor alongside
- a color monitor for a Sun-4/110 workstation.
- * Hard disks for IBM RTs.
- * Companies to lend us capable programmers and technical writers for at
- least six months. True wizards may be welcome for shorter periods, but we
- have found that six months is the minimum time for a good programmer to
- finish a worthwhile project.
- * Professors who might be interested in sponsoring or hosting research
- assistants to do GNU development, with FSF support.
- * Volunteers to help write programs and documentation. Send mail to
- `gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu' for the task list and coding standards.
- * Speech and character recognition software and systems (if the devices
- aren't too weird), with the device drivers if possible. This would help
- the productivity of a few partially disabled programmers we know.
- * New quotes and ideas for articles in the GNU's Bulletin. We particularly
- like to highlight organizations involved with free information exchange.
- * 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.
- Please Support Free Software
- ****************************
- If you believe in free software and you want to make sure there is more in the
- future--please support the efforts of the FSF with a donation!
- Your tax-deductible donation will greatly help us reach our goals.
- $500 $250 $100 $50 other $______
- Foreign currency:______
- Circle the amount you are donating, tear off this page, and send it with your
- donation to:
- Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- 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 Internet access, you can get the latest software via anonymous FTP
- from the host `prep.ai.mit.edu' (the IP address is `18.71.0.38'). Get file
- `/pub/gnu/GETTING.GNU.SOFTWARE' for more information.
- If you cannot get the software one of these ways, or would like to contribute
- some funds to our efforts and receive the latest versions, we distribute tapes
- for a copying and distribution fee (see the "FSF Order Form").
- 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 we
- list some of them here (also see "Free Software for Microcomputers"). 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 TCP/IP Internet sites provide GNU software via anonymous FTP (program:
- `ftp', user: `anonymous', password: YOUR NAME, mode: `binary'):
- archie.au, ftp.eu.net, wuarchive.wustl.edu, uxc.cso.uiuc.edu,
- ftp.stacken.kth.se, sunic.sunet.se, isy.liu.se, ugle.unit.no,
- ftp.win.tue.nl, ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de, ftp.diku.dk,
- utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp, labrea.stanford.edu, jaguar.cs.utah.edu,
- cc.utah.edu (VMS GNU Emacs), ftp.eunet.ch, nic.funet.fi,
- gatekeeper.dec.com, mango.rsmas.miami.edu (VMS GCC),
- ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp, and ftp.uu.net (under `/packages/gnu').
- Those on the SPAN network can ask rdss::corbet.
- Those on JANET can look under `src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/gnu'.
- You can get some GNU programs via UUCP. Ohio State University posts their UUCP
- instructions regularly to newsgroup `comp.sources.d' on USENET. The following
- people will send you information via electronic mail:
- hao!scicom!qetzal!upba!ugn!nepa!denny, uunet!hutch!barber,
- src@contrib.de, james@bigtex.cactus.org, acornrc!bob,
- uucp@cis.ohio-state.edu, and info@ftp.uu.net
- For those without Internet access, see the section entitled "Free Software
- Support" for information on receiving electronic mail via UUCP.
- GNU Software Available Now
- **************************
- We offer Unix software source distribution tapes in `tar' format on the
- following media: 1600 bpi 9-track reel tape, 8mm Exabyte cartridges, Sun QIC-24
- cartridges, Hewlett-Packard 16-track cartridges, and IBM RS/6000 1/4"
- cartridges (an Emacs binary is also on the RS/6000 tape). We also offer VMS
- tapes for GNU Emacs and the GNU C compiler that include sources and VMS
- executables.
- The contents of the various 9-track and cartridge tapes for Unix systems are
- the same (except for the RS/6000 Emacs tape). Only the media are different
- (see the "FSF Order Form"). Documentation comes in Texinfo format. The GNU
- software tapes include both `texinfo.tex' and `texi2roff'.
- Version numbers listed by program names were current at the time this Bulletin
- was published. When you order a distribution tape, some of the programs might
- be newer, and therefore the version number higher.
- Contents of the Emacs Tape
- --------------------------
- The software on this release tape is considered fairly stable, but as always,
- we welcome your bug reports. Some of the software that has been on this tape
- in the past has moved to the Languages and Utilities tapes.
- * GNU Emacs 18.58
- In 1975, Richard Stallman developed the first Emacs, an extensible,
- customizable real-time display editor. GNU Emacs is his second
- implementation. It's the first Emacs for Unix systems that offers true
- Lisp--smoothly integrated into the editor--for writing extensions, and
- provides a special interface to MIT's X Window System. In addition to its
- powerful native command set, extensions which emulate other popular
- editors are distributed: vi, EDT (DEC VMS editor), and Gosling (aka
- Unipress) Emacs. It is described by the `GNU Emacs Manual' and the `GNU
- Emacs Lisp Reference Manual', which come with the software. A reference
- card is available.
- GNU Emacs 18.58 runs on many Unix systems: Alliant, Altos 3068, Amdahl
- (UTS), Apollo, AT&T (3B machines & 7300 PC), Aviion, CCI 5/32 & 6/32,
- Celerity, Convex, Digital (DECstation 3100 & 5000 (Pmaxes), VAX (BSD,
- System V, or VMS)), Motorola Delta (System V/68 release 3), Dual, Elxsi
- 6400, Encore (DPC, APC, & XPC), Gould, HP (9000 series 200, 300, 700, &
- 800, but not series 500), HLH Orion 1/05, IBM (RT/PC (4.2 & AIX), PS/2
- (AIX (386 only)) & RS/6000 (AIX)), Integrated Solutions (Optimum V with
- 68020 & VMEbus), Intel 80386 (BSD, Microport, System V, Xenix & PS/2 (for
- MS-DOS see "Free Software for Microcomputers")), Iris (2500, 2500 Turbo, &
- 4D), LMI (Nu), Masscomp, MIPS, National Semiconductor 32000, NCR (Tower
- 32), Nixdorf Targon 31, Plexus, Prime EXL, Sequent (Balance & Symmetry),
- SONY News, Stride (system release 2), all Suns (including 386i), Stardent
- 1500 & 3000, Tahoe, Tandem Integrity S2, Tektronix (NS32000 & 4300), Texas
- Instruments (Nu), Titan P2 & P3, Ustation E30 (SS5E), & Whitechapel (MG1).
- * GNU Calc 2.02
- Calc (written by Dave Gillespie in Emacs Lisp) is an extensible, advanced
- desk calculator and mathematical tool that runs as part of GNU Emacs. It
- comes with the `Calc Manual', which serves as a tutorial and reference.
- If you wish, you can use Calc only as a simple four-function calculator,
- but it provides additional features including choice of algebraic or RPN
- (stack-based) entry, logarithms, trigonometric and financial functions,
- arbitrary precision, complex numbers, vectors, matrices, dates, times,
- infinities, sets, algebraic simplification, differentiation, and
- integration.
- * MIT Scheme 7.0 and Yale T 3.1
- Scheme is a simplified, lexically-scoped dialect of Lisp. It was designed
- at MIT and other universities to teach students the art of programming and
- to research new parallel programming constructs and compilation
- techniques. MIT Scheme is written in C and the interpreter runs on many
- Unix systems. It conforms to the "Revised^3 Report On the Algorithmic
- Language Scheme" (MIT AI Lab Memo 848a), for which TeX source is included.
- T is a variant of Scheme developed at Yale University; it 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
- VAXen, 680x0 systems, SPARCs, and MIPS R2000 workstations (including the
- DECstation 3100), & 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.
- * Texinfo 2.14, `texi2roff' 2.0
- Texinfo is a set of utilities that generate printed manuals and online
- hypertext-style manuals (called `Info'). The late beta-test Texinfo 2
- package contains enhancements to the current suite and a manual.
- `texi2roff', written by Beverly Erlebacher, translates GNU Texinfo files
- so that they can be printed by the `[gnt]roff' programs utilizing the
- `-mm', `-ms', or `-me' macro packages. It is included on all Unix tapes
- so people without TeX (but who have `[gnt]roff') can print out GNU
- documentation.
- * Data Compression Software
- Some of the contents of our tape distribution are compressed, which is
- currently indicated by a `.Z' suffix. We include software on the tapes to
- compress/decompress these files. Due to patent troubles with `compress',
- we will be switching to another compression algorithm--as soon as we find
- one that is safe. The online distribution on `prep.ai.mit.edu' will be
- changed first to give the new program a trial period. Each tape includes
- the program that will uncompress the compressed files on it.
- Contents of the Languages Tape
- ------------------------------
- This tape contains programming language tools: compilers, interpreters, and
- related programs (parsers, conversion programs, debuggers, etc.). Many of these
- programs were on the Compiler tape, which no longer exists.
- * GCC 1.40
- The GNU C compiler is a fairly portable optimizing compiler which performs
- automatic register allocation, common sub-expression elimination,
- invariant code motion from loops, induction variable optimizations,
- constant propagation and copy propagation, delayed popping of function
- call arguments, tail recursion elimination, integration of inline
- functions, and frame pointer elimination, plus many local optimizations
- that are automatically deduced from the machine description.
- GCC supports full ANSI C, traditional C, and the GNU C extensions. It
- generates good code for the 32000, 680x0, 80386, Alliant, Convex, Tahoe &
- VAX CPUs, and for these RISC CPUs: i860, Pyramid, SPARC, & SPUR. The MIPS
- RISC CPU is also supported. Other supported systems include: 386 (AIX),
- Alliant FX/8, Altos 3068, Apollo 68000/68020 (Aegis), AT&T 3B1, Convex C1
- & C2, DECstation 3100 & 5000, DEC VAX, Encore MultiMax (NS32000), Genix
- NS32000, Harris HCX-7 & HCX-9, HP-UX 68000/68020, HP (BSD), IBM PS/2
- (AIX), Intel 386 (System V, Xenix, BSD, but not MS-DOS), Iris MIPS
- machine, ISI 68000/68020, MIPS, NeXT, Pyramid, Sequent Balance (NS32000),
- Sequent Symmetry (i386), SONY News, Sun (2, 3 (optionally with FPA), 4,
- SPARCstation, & Sun-386i). See "Project GNU Status Report" for more
- details.
- A good programmer will be able to make a cross compiler on most of these
- systems to cross-compile to most of these architectures. Most of the work
- will be with the compiler support tools, not GCC itself.
- The `GCC Manual' is included with the compiler. The manual (not yet on
- our order form) 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 the C programming language.
- * G++ 1.40.3, `libg++' 1.39.0, and NIH Class Library 2.204a
- G++ is a set of changes for GCC that compiles C++, the well-known
- object-oriented language. As far as possible, G++ is kept compatible with
- the evolving draft ANSI standard, but not with `cfront' (the AT&T
- compiler), as `cfront' has been diverging from ANSI. G++ comes with the
- `GNU G++ User's Guide' (not yet published on paper). G++ compiles source
- quickly, provides good error messages, and works well with GDB. As G++
- depends on GCC, it must be used with a specific numbered version of GCC.
- The GNU C++ library, `libg'++, is an extensive, 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.
- * GAS 1.38.1, binutils 1.9, `dld' 3.2.3, and COFF Support
- The GNU assembler (GAS) is a fairly portable, one pass assembler that is
- almost twice as fast as Unix `as' and works for 32x32, 680x0, 80386, SPARC
- (Sun-4), and VAXen.
- We have free versions of `ar', `gprof', `ld', `nm', `ranlib', `size', and
- `strip'. The GNU linker `ld' is fast, and is the only linker with
- source-line numbered error messages for multiply-defined symbols and
- undefined references.
- `dld' is a dynamic linker written by W. Wilson Ho. Linking your program
- with the `dld' library allows you to dynamically load object files into
- the running binary.
- The entire suite of GNU software tools can be run 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.
- * `flex' 2.3.7 and Bison 1.18
- `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.
- Bison is an upwardly compatible replacement for the parser generator
- `yacc', with additional features. The `Bison Manual' comes with the
- software.
- * `make' 3.62, GDB 3.5, and `indent' 1.2
- GNU `make' has most of the features of the BSD and System V versions of
- `make' as well as many of our own extensions, and complies with POSIX.2.
- GNU extensions include parallelism, conditional execution, and text
- manipulation. Version 3.62 of GNU `make' is fairly stable. The `Make
- Manual' comes with the source.
- GDB 3.5, the GNU debugger, runs under BSD 4.2/4.3 on VAXen and Suns (2, 3,
- 4, & SPARCstation), Altos, Convex, HP 9000/370 (BSD), HP 9000/320 (HP/UX),
- System V 386 systems (with either GNU or native object file format), ISI
- Optimum V, Merlin under Utek 2.1, SONY News, Gould NPL & PN machines,
- Pyramid, Sequent Symmetry (a 386-based machine), and Encore MultiMax under
- Umax 4.2.
- GDB features incremental reading of symbol tables (for fast startup and
- less memory use), command-line editing, interactive function calling in
- the program being debugged, remote debugging over a serial line, a value
- history, and user-defined commands. It can be used to debug C, C++, and
- Fortran programs. The `GDB Manual' includes a reference card.
- `indent' is the GNU-modified version of the freely-redistributable BSD
- program. It formats C source according to GNU coding standards by
- default, though the original default and other formats are available as
- options.
- * GAWK 2.13.2, Smalltalk 1.1.1, and `perl' 4.019
- GAWK is upwardly compatible with the System V Release 4 version of `awk'.
- The `GAWK Manual' comes with the software.
- GNU Smalltalk is an interpreted object-oriented programming language
- system written in portable C. Features include an incremental garbage
- collector, a binary image save capability, the ability to invoke
- user-written C code and pass parameters to it, a GNU Emacs editing mode,
- optional byte-code compilation tracing and byte-code execution tracing,
- and automatically loaded per-user initialization files.
- Larry Wall has written a fast interpreter named `perl', which combines the
- features of `sed', `awk', `sh', and C. It has all of the capabilities of
- the these programs, as well interfaces to many system calls and C library
- routines (including the TCP/IP socket-manipulation facilities).
- * `gperf' 2.1, `ae', and `f2c' 3.2.90
- `gperf' is a "perfect" hash-table generation utility. There are actually
- two versions of `gperf', one written in C and one in C++. Both will
- produce hash functions in either C or C++.
- `ae' works with GCC to produce more complete profiling information.
- `f2c' converts Fortran--77 source files into C or C++.
- * `gdbm' 1.5 and `gmp' 1.2
- The `gdbm' library is the GNU replacement for the standard `dbm' and
- `ndbm' libraries. `gdbm' supports both styles but does not need sparse
- database formats (unlike its Unix counterparts).
- GNU MP (`gmp') is a library for arbitrary precision arithmetic, operating
- on signed integers and rational numbers. It has a rich set of functions,
- all with a regular interface.
- * `texi2roff' 2.0 and Texinfo 2.14
- These packages are the same as the ones on the Emacs tape.
- Contents of the Utilities Tape
- ------------------------------
- This tape includes the programs written by the GNU Project (as well as some
- third-party software) that are not on the other two tapes. For the most part,
- they consist of smaller utilities and miscellaneous applications. As usual,
- bug reports are welcome. Many of these programs were on the old Emacs tape and
- the now defunct Compiler tape.
- * BASH 1.12, `groff' 1.05, and `gptx' 0.2
- The GNU Shell, BASH (for Bourne Again SHell), is compatible with the Unix
- `sh' and offers many extensions found in `csh' and `ksh'. BASH has job
- control, `csh'-style command history, and command-line editing (with Emacs
- and `vi' modes built-in and the ability to rebind keys). BASH should
- compile on most systems.
- `groff' is a document formatting system, which includes implementations of
- `troff', `pic', `eqn', `tbl', `refer', the `-man', `-ms', and `-mm'
- macros, as well as drivers for Postscript, TeX dvi format, and
- typewriter-like devices. Also included is a modified version of the
- Berkeley `-me' macros and an enhanced version of the `X11' `xditview'
- previewer.
- `gptx' is the GNU version of `ptx', a permuted index generator. Among
- other things, it can produce readable "KWIC" (KeyWords In their Context)
- without the need of `nroff', and there is an option to produce
- TeX-compatible output.
- * `tar' 1.10 and `cpio' 1.5
- GNU `tar' includes multivolume support, the ability to archive sparse
- files, automatic archive compression/decompression, remote archives, and
- special features to allow `tar' to be used for incremental and full
- backups.
- `cpio' is an alternative archive format to `tar'.
- * `diff' 1.15, `grep'/`egrep' 1.5, `fgrep' 1.1, and `patch' 2.0.12u6
- The `diff' and `[ef]grep' programs are GNU's versions of the Unix programs
- of the same name. They are much faster than the traditional Unix
- versions. `patch' is Larry Wall's program to take `diff''s output and
- apply those differences to an original file to generate the patched
- version.
- * RCS 5.6 and CVS 1.3
- The Revision Control System, RCS, is used for version control and
- management of software projects. When used with GNU `diff', later
- versions of RCS can handle binary files (executables, object files, 8-bit
- data, etc). The Concurrent Version System, CVS, manages software revision
- and release control in a multi-developer, multi-directory, multi-group
- environment. It works best on top of RCS Versions 4 and above, but will
- parse older RCS formats with the loss of CVS's fancier features. See
- Berliner, Brian, "CVS-II: Parallelizing Software Development,"
- `Proceedings of the Winter 1990 USENIX Association Conference.'
- * `find' 3.5, fileutils 3.2, shellutils 1.6, and textutils 1.3
- `find' is used frequently both interactively and in shell scripts to find
- files that match certain criteria and perform arbitrary operations on them.
- The "fileutils" are file manipulation utilities: `chgrp', `chmod', `chown',
- `cp', `dd', `df', `du', `install', `ln', `ls', `mkdir', `mkfifo', `mknod',
- `mv', `mvdir', `rm', `rmdir', and `touch'. The "shellutils" are small
- commands used on the command line or in shell scripts: `basename', `date',
- `dirname', `env', `expr', `groups', `id', `logname', `nice', `nohup',
- `pathchk', `printenv', `printf', `sleep', `stty', `tee', `test', `tty',
- `uname', `whoami', and `yes'. The "textutils" programs manipulate textual
- data: `cat', `cmp', `comm', `csplit', `cut', `expand', `fold', `head',
- `join', `nl', `paste', `pr', `sort', `split', `sum', `tac', `tail', `tr',
- `unexpand', `uniq', and `wc'.
- * Ghostscript 2.4.1, Ghostview 1.3, fontutils 0.4, and `gnuplot' 3.1
- Ghostscript is GNU's graphics language that is almost fully compatible
- with Postscript (see "Project GNU Status Report"). Ghostview provides an
- X11 user interface for the Ghostscript interpreter. Ghostview and
- Ghostscript function as two cooperating programs, Ghostview creates the
- viewing window and Ghostscript draws in it.
- The "fontutils" can create fonts for use with Ghostscript or TeX, starting
- with a scanned type image and converting the bitmaps to outlines. They
- also contain general conversion programs and other utilities.
- `gnuplot' is an interactive program for plotting mathematical expressions
- and data. Oddly enough, the program was neither written nor named for the
- GNU Project, the name is a coincidence.
- * `m4' 1.0, `sed' 1.08, and `bc' 1.02
- GNU `m4' is an implementation of the traditional Unix macro processor and
- is mostly System V Release 4 compatible, although it has some extensions
- (for example, it handles more than 9 positional parameters to macros).
- `m4' also has built-in functions for including files, running shell
- commands, doing arithmetic, etc.
- `sed' is a stream-oriented version of `ed', used to manipulate text.
- `bc' is an interactive algebraic language with arbitrary precision. GNU
- `bc' was implemented from the POSIX P1003.2 draft standard, but it has
- several extensions including multi-character variable names, an `else'
- statement, and full Boolean expressions.
- * `elvis' 1.5, `screen' 2.1c, and `less' 177
- `elvis' is a clone of the `vi'/`ex' Unix editor. It supports nearly all
- of the `vi'/`ex' commands in both visual and line mode. `elvis' runs
- under BSD, System V, Xenix, Minix, MS-DOS, and Atari TOS. It should be
- easy to port to many other systems.
- `screen' is a terminal multiplexor that allows you to handle several
- independent "screens" (ttys) on a single physical terminal. Each virtual
- terminal emulates a DEC VT100 plus several ANSI X3.64 and ISO 2022
- functions.
- `less' is a paginator similar to `more' and `pg' but with various features
- (such as the ability to scroll backwards) that most pagers lack.
- * `time' 1.3, `tput' 1.0, and Termcap 1.0
- `time' is used to report statistics (usually from a shell) about the
- amount of user, system, and real time used by a process.
- `tput' is a portable way to allow shell scripts to use special terminal
- capabilities. It uses the `termcap' database, rather than the usual
- `terminfo'.
- The GNU Termcap library is a drop-in replacement for `libtermcap.a' on any
- system. It does not place an arbitrary limit on the size of `termcap'
- entries, unlike most other `termcap' libraries. Included is extensive
- documentation in Texinfo format.
- * MandelSpawn 0.06, GNU Chess 3.1, NetHack 3.0, and GnuGo 1.1
- MandelSpawn is a parallel Mandelbrot program for the MIT X Window System.
- GNU Chess has text and X display interfaces. NetHack is a
- display-oriented adventure game similar to Rogue. GnuGo plays the game of
- Go (Wei-Chi); it is not yet very sophisticated.
- * `texi2roff' 2.0, Texinfo 2.14, and `make' 3.62
- `texi2roff' and Texinfo are the same as the ones on the Emacs tape.
- `make' is the same as the one on the Languages tape.
- Contents of the Experimental Tape
- ---------------------------------
- This tape includes software that is currently in beta test and is available for
- people who are feeling adventurous. Some of the software already has released
- versions on the distribution tapes. This tape is being offered for a limited
- time; as the programs become stable, they will replace older versions on other
- tapes. Please send bug reports to the appropriate addresses (listed on the
- tape in the notes for each program).
- * GCC 2.1
- New features in GCC Version 2 include instruction scheduling, loop
- unrolling, filling of delay slots, leaf function optimization, optimized
- multiplication by constants, and a certain amount of common subexpression
- elimination (CSE) between basic blocks. (Not all of the supported machine
- descriptions provide for scheduling or delay slots.) Function-wide CSE has
- been written, but needs to be cleaned up before it can be installed.
- Position-independent code is supported on the 88000 and SPARC, and soon
- perhaps on the 680x0.
- GCC 2 can also open-code most arithmetic on 64-bit values (type `long long
- int'). It can generate code for most of the same machines as Version 1,
- plus the IBM PC/RT, the IBM RS/6000, the Motorola 88000, the Acorn RISC
- machine, the AMD 29000 and the HP-PA (700 or 800). Ports for the IBM 370,
- the Intel 960, and the NCUBE are on their way. Version 2 can generate
- `a.out', COFF, Elf, and OSF/Rose files when used with a suitable
- assembler. GCC 2 can produce debugging information in several formats:
- BSD stabs, COFF, ECOFF, ECOFF with stabs symbols, and Dwarf.
- Not all of the Version 1 machine descriptions have been updated yet; some
- do not work, and others need work to take full advantage of instruction
- scheduling and delay slots. The old machine descriptions for the Pyramid,
- Alliant, Tahoe, and Spur (as well as a new port for the Tron) do not work,
- but are still included in the distribution in case you want to work on
- them.
- In GCC 2, using the new configuration scheme, building a cross-compiler is
- as easy as building a compiler for the same target machine. GCC 2 also
- supports more general calling conventions; it can pass arguments "by
- reference" and can preallocate stack space arguments. On the SPARC it
- uses the standard conventions for structure arguments, but structure
- return values are still a problem. With luck, this too will be fixed soon.
- Version 2 of the compiler supports three languages: Objective-C, C++, and
- C; the source file name selects the language. (The front end support for
- Objective-C was donated by NeXT.) The runtime support needed to run
- Objective-C programs is mostly working, but not available yet.
- C has been extended to support nested functions, nonlocal gotos, and
- taking the address of a label.
- * GDB 4.5
- GDB 4 contains many new features since 3.5 (the version currently on the
- release tapes). They include remote debugging over serial lines or
- TCP/IP; watchpoints; more readable output and a simplified command
- interface; support of more binary formats (using BFD); limited debugging
- of C++ (when using GCC 2); preliminary support for Modula-2 debugging (for
- the compiler being developed at the State University of New York at
- Buffalo, others will not work); and the ability to debug programs and core
- files that use SunOS shared libraries.
- GDB 4 can perform cross-debugging. To say that GDB 4 *targets* a platform
- means that it can perform native or cross-debugging for it. To say that
- GDB 4 can *host* a given platform means that it can be built on it, but
- cannot necessarily debug native programs. GDB 4 can:
- * *target* and *host*: Amiga 3000 (Amix), DECstation 3100 & 5000, HP
- 9000/370 (BSD), IBM RS/6000 (AIX), Motorola Delta 88000 (System V),
- NCR 3000 (SVR4), SGI Iris (MIPS running Irix V3 or V4), SONY News
- (NEWSOS 3.x), Sun-3, Sun-4, & Ultracomputer (29K running Sym1).
- * *target*, but not *host*: i960 Nindy & AMD 29000 (COFF or `a.out').
- * *host*, but not *target*: Intel 386 (Mach) & IBM RT/PC.
- In addition, GDB 4 can understand the symbol tables emitted by the
- compilers supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC.
- (These symbol tables are in a format which essentially nobody else uses.)
- Debugging of G++ remains a problem, and GDB 4 won't work for any version
- of G++ 1 at all.
- * BFD
- The BFD (Binary File Descriptor) Library from Cygnus Software is a set of
- routines to make handling different object file formats more transparent
- to programs using them. Some GNU software is in the process of being
- converted to use it. BFD comes with documentation.
- * GNU C Library 1.03
- The library is ANSI C and POSIX.1 compliant and has most of the functions
- specified in POSIX.2 draft 11.2. It is upward compatible with the 4.4 BSD
- C library and includes many System V functions, plus GNU extensions.
- The C library works on HP 9000 series 300s running 4.3 BSD and Sun-3 or
- Sun-4 systems running SunOS 4.1. Someone has built it successfully for an
- i860 cross-development environment. Porting is not hard.
- * libg++ 2.0
- This is the GNU C++ library for GCC Version 2 (see "Contents of Languages
- Tape" for more info regarding libg++). The latest version tries to
- automatically configure itself, thus working out of the box on many hosts.
- The iostream facility has been improved.
- * GNU Graphics 0.17
- See "Project GNU Status Report" for details.
- Contents of the X11 Tapes
- -------------------------
- The two X11 tapes contain Version 11, Release 5 of the MIT X Window System.
- The first FSF tape contains all the core software, documentation, and some
- contributed clients. FSF refers to its first tape as the `required' X tape
- since it is necessary for running X or running GNU Emacs under X. The second,
- `optional,' FSF tape contains contributed libraries and other toolkits, the
- Andrew software, games, and other programs.
- Berkeley Networking 2 Tape
- --------------------------
- The Berkeley "Net2" release contains the second 4.3 BSD distribution and is
- newer than both 4.3BSD-Tahoe and 4.3BSD-Reno. It includes nearly the entire
- BSD software system except for a few utilities, some parts of the kernel, and
- some library routines which your own C library is likely to provide. This
- release contains much more software than the older releases, including third
- party software like Kerberos and some GNU software (for example, GCC, now the
- standard BSD compiler). Except for kernel sources, the GNU Project has
- replacements on other tapes for many of the missing programs.
- VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
- ----------------------------
- We offer two VMS tapes. One has just the GNU Emacs editor. The second
- contains the GNU C compiler, Bison (needed to compile GCC), `gas' (needed to
- assemble GCC's output), and some library and include files. We are not aware of
- a GDB port for VMS. Both VMS tapes have executables from which you can
- bootstrap, since the DEC VMS C compiler has bugs and cannot compile GCC.
- Please do not ask us to devote effort to VMS support, because it is peripheral
- to the GNU Project.
- Free Software for Microcomputers
- ********************************
- We do not provide support for GNU software on microcomputers because it is
- peripheral to the GNU Project. However, we are willing to publish information
- about groups who do so. If you are aware of any such efforts, please send the
- details, including postal addresses, archive sites, and mailing lists, to
- `gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu' or to the postal address on the front cover.
- Please do not ask the Free Software Foundation about this microcomputer
- software. FSF does not maintain it, and has no more information about it.
- * GNU Software not on Apple computers
- In lawsuits, Apple claims the power to stop people from writing any
- program that has a user interface that works even vaguely like the
- Macintosh's. If Apple triumphs in the courts, it will create for itself a
- new power over the public that will enable it to put an end to free
- software. So long as Apple continues to try to establish this kind of
- monopoly, we will not provide any support or software for Apple machines.
- * Boston Computer Society
- The BCS has thousands of shareware and free programs for microcomputers,
- including some GNU programs. Contact them to see what is available for
- your machine:
- Boston Computer Society
- 1 Kendall Square, Bldg 1400
- Cambridge, MA 02139
- USA
- Phone: (617) 252-0600
- * GNU Software on the Amiga
- Get Amiga ports of many GNU programs via anonymous FTP from:
- `karazm.math.uh.edu' in `/pub/Amiga/Gnu' (USA), `titan.ksc.nasa.gov' in
- `/pub/amiga' (USA), and `ftp.funet.fi' in `/pub/amiga/gnu' (Europe).
- For info on (or offers to help with) the GCC port and related projects,
- ask Leonard Norrgard, `vinsci@nic.funet.fi'. For info on the GNU Emacs
- port, ask Mark D. Henning, `henning@stolaf.edu'. Get more info via
- anonymous FTP in `prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/MicrosPorts/Amiga'.
- * GNU Software for Atari TOS and Atari Minix
- You can obtain Atari ports from `atari.archive.umich.edu' using anonymous
- FTP. Howard Chu, `hyc@hanauma.jpl.nasa.gov', maintains the archive.
- Ports are discussed on USENET in `comp.sys.atari.st.tech' &
- `comp.sys.atari.st'. In order to get this group via e-mail, please ask
- `info-atari16-request@score.stanford.edu'.
- * GNU C/C++ 2.1 for OS/2 2.0
- Michael Johnson has completed a new, completely stand-alone port of the
- GNU C/C++ Version 2.1 compiler for OS/2 2.0. The distribution contains
- C/C++ compilers, the GNU assembler, the BSD C library and an OS/2-specific
- library, and documentation. It is available via anonymous FTP from
- `hobbes.nmsu.edu' in the directory `/pub/os2/2.0/gnu/gcc21'.
- Send a message to `os2gcc-request@charon.mit.edu' to be placed on a
- mailing list for discussion about this system.
- * Linux: a free Unix system for 386 machines
- Linux (named after its author, Linus Torvalds) is a free Unix clone which
- implements a subset of System V and POSIX functionality. Linux has been
- written from scratch and does not contain any proprietary code in the
- kernel. A large number of the utilities and libraries are GNU software.
- Linux runs only on 386/486 AT-bus machines, and porting to non-Intel
- architectures is likely to be difficult as the kernel makes extensive use
- of 386 memory management and task primitives. Linux is freely
- distributable and available via anonymous FTP: `tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux'
- (USA), and `nic.funet.fi:/pub/OS/Linux' (Europe).
- There is a newsgroup, `comp.os.linux', for discussions about Linux. Ask
- `linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi' regarding the mailing lists.
- * Free 386 BSD
- Experienced hackers may be interested in the alpha test version of a 386
- port of BSD Unix by William F. Jolitz et al. This kernel is free of AT&T
- code and is freely redistributable. You can obtain more information from
- `sokol@reyes.stanford.edu'. Note that this early version is not reliable,
- and has trouble booting on some systems.
- * DJGPP, the GNU C/C++ compiler for MS-DOS
- D. J. Delorie has ported GCC/G++ to the 386 MS-DOS platform. The compiler
- and programs it generates run in 32-bit mode with full virtual memory
- support. DJGPP is available via FTP from `barnacle.erc.clarkson.edu' in
- `/pub/msdos/djgpp'. You can subscribe to a mailing list on DJGPP by
- sending your e-mail address to `djgpp-request@sun.soe.clarkson.edu'.
- * Demacs, GNU Emacs for MS-DOS
- Manabu Higashida and Hirano Satoshi have released Demacs, a GNU Emacs port
- for 386/486 MS-DOS. Version 1.2.0 is the first post-beta release. Demacs
- provides several DOS-specific features: support for binary or text file
- translation, "8bit clean" display mode, 80x86 software interrupt calls via
- a `int86' Lisp function, machine-specific features such as function key
- support, file name completion with drive name, child processes
- (`suspend-emacs', and `call-process'). Dired mode works without `ls.exe'.
- Anonymous FTP it from: `wuarchive.wustl.edu' in `/mirrors/msdos/demacs'
- (US), `utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp' in `/GNU/demacs' (Japan),
- `rana.cc.deakin.oz.au' in `/pub/PC/oak/demacs' (Pacific), and
- `ftp.funet.fi' in `/pub/gnu/emacs/demacs' (Europe).
- * Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
- Russ Nelson, `nelson@crynwr.com', has written a small programmable editor
- that is somewhat compatible with GNU Emacs and will run on most MS-DOS
- systems, including 8088 machines. It is so compatible that Freemacs users
- can use the `GNU Emacs Manual' as a reference for it.
- Anonymous FTP it from `emacs16a.zip' (under `PD1:<MSDOS.FREEMACS>') from
- `wsmr-simtel20.army.mil'; or send $15 (copying fee) to:
- Russ Nelson
- 11 Grant St.
- Potsdam, NY 13676
- USA
- Phone: (315) 268-1925 (Fax: 9201)
- Specify floppy format: `5.25"/360K'; or `3.50"/720K.'
- * GNU Software on MS-DOS
- Russ Nelson has ports for many GNU programs for MS-DOS available on floppy
- disk. Contact him at the above address for more information.
- In addition, contact `info-gnu-msdos-request@sun.soe.clarkson.edu' for
- info on ports of GNU programs to MS-DOS and related mailing lists. More
- information is in `/pub/gnu/MicrosPorts/MSDOS' and `MSDOS.gcc', obtainable
- via anonymous FTP on `prep.ai.mit.edu'.
- Thank GNUs
- **********
- Thanks to all those mentioned above in "GNUs Flashes", "Project GNU Status
- Report", "GNU in Japan", and "GNU Software Available Now".
- Thanks to the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Laboratory for
- Computer Science at MIT for their invaluable assistance of many kinds.
- Thanks to Village Center, Inc., ASCII Corporation, and the Japan Unix Society,
- all of Japan, for their continued donations and support, and thanks to the
- anonymous GNU users in Japan for their gifts.
- Thanks again to the Open Software Foundation for their continued support.
- Thanks to the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
- Thanks to the University of Massachusetts at Boston (especially Rick Martin) for
- allowing Karl Berry and Kathryn Hargreaves to use their computers.
- Thanks to Chris Thyberg and Carnegie-Mellon University for supporting Tom Lord.
- Thanks to Jim Mochel for his help with MS-DOS.
- Thanks to Chet Ramey for his continuing work on improving BASH.
- Thanks to Lucid, Inc. for the loan of an X terminal and for their support of
- Joe Arceneaux.
- Thanks to Carol Botteron for proofreading and other assistance, and to Mieko
- and Nobuyuki Hikichi for their invaluable help raising both funds and
- consciousness in Japan.
- Thanks to Cygnus Support for continuing to improve various programs and
- assisting the GNU Project in other ways.
- Thanks go out to all those who have either lent or donated machines, including
- Hewlett-Packard for two 80486 computers, and six 68030 and four Spectrum
- workstations; Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp. for the Sun-4/110;
- 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 machine; NeXT for their
- workstation; the MIT Media Laboratory for the Hewlett-Packard 68020; SONY Corp.
- and Software Research Associates, Inc., both of Tokyo, for three SONY News
- workstations; IBM Corp. for an RS/6000 computer; the MIT Laboratory of Computer
- Science for the DEC MicroVAX; the Open Software Foundation for the Compaq 386;
- Delta Microsystems for an Exabyte tape drive; an anonymous donor for 5 IBM RT
- computers; Liant Software Corp. for five VT100s; Jerry Peek for a 386 machine;
- NCD Corporation for an X terminal; and Interleaf, Inc., Veronika Caslavsky,
- Paul English, Cindy Woolworth, and Lisa Bergen for the loan of a scanner.
- 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.
- The creation of this bulletin is our way of thanking all who have expressed
- interest in what we are doing.
- Free Software Foundation Order Form
- ***********************************
- This order form is effective 1 July 1992 - 31 January 1993
- Prices and contents may change without notice.
- Please allow six weeks for delivery (though it won't usually take that long).
- All software and publications are distributed with permission to copy and to
- redistribute.
- Texinfo source for each manual is on the appropriate tape. The prices for
- tapes do not include printed manuals.
- All software and documentation from the Free Software Foundation is provided
- on an "as is" basis, with no warranty of any kind.
- QUANTITY PRICE ITEM See "GNU Software Available Now" for a description of
- the contents of the tapes.
- For Unix systems, on 1600 bpi reel-to-reel 9-track 1/2" tape in Unix tar format
- (tape contents described above):
- ________ $200 GNU Emacs Tape
- ________ $200 GNU Languages Tape
- ________ $200 GNU Experimental Tape
- ________ $200 GNU Utilities Tape
- ________ $200 BSD Net2 Tape
- ________ $200 X11R5 Required Tape
- ________ $200 X11R5 Optional Tape
- For Suns and some other Unix Systems, on QIC-24 DC300XLP 1/4 inch
- cartridge tape, Unix tar format (tape contents described above):
- ________ $210 GNU Emacs Tape
- ________ $210 GNU Languages Tape
- ________ $210 GNU Experimental Tape
- ________ $210 GNU Utilities Tape
- ________ $210 BSD Net2 Tape
- ________ $210 X11R5 Required Tape
- ________ $210 X11R5 Optional Tape
- For some Unix Systems, on Exabyte 8mm cartridge tape, Unix tar format
- (tape contents described above):
- ________ $205 GNU Emacs Tape
- ________ $205 GNU Languages Tape
- ________ $205 GNU Experimental Tape
- ________ $205 GNU Utilities Tape
- ________ $205 BSD Net2 Tape
- ________ $205 X11R5 Required Tape
- ________ $205 X11R5 Optional Tape
- For HP Systems, on 16-track DC600HC 1/4 inch cartridge tape, Unix tar format
- (tape contents described above):
- ________ $230 GNU Emacs Tape
- ________ $230 GNU Languages Tape
- ________ $230 GNU Experimental Tape
- ________ $230 GNU Utilities Tape
- ________ $230 BSD Net2 Tape
- ________ $230 X11R5 Required Tape
- ________ $230 X11R5 Optional Tape
- For IBM RS/6000 Systems, on DC600A 1/4 inch cartridge tape Unix tar format
- (tape contents described above) (the GNU Languages Tape is not yet available
- for the RS/6000):
- ________ $215 GNU Emacs Tape, plus executable files of Emacs
- ________ $215 GNU Experimental Tape
- ________ $215 GNU Utilities Tape
- ________ $215 BSD Net2 Tape
- ________ $215 X11R5 Required Tape
- ________ $215 X11R5 Optional Tape
- For VMS systems, on 1600 bpi reel-to-reel 9-track 1/2" tape in VMS BACKUP (aka
- interchange format):
- ________ $195 GNU Emacs source code and binaries. None of the other
- software on the GNU Emacs Tape, described above, is included.
- ________ $195 GNU C compiler source code and binaries. Includes Bison and
- GAS. None of the other software on the GNU Languages Tape,
- described above, is included.
- The following manuals are all bound to lie open, flat on a table:
- ________ $20 GNU Emacs manual, unit price for 1 to 5 copies.
- ~280 pages with a reference card, phototypeset and
- offset printed.
- ________ $13 GNU Emacs manuals, unit price for 6 or more.
- ________ $50 A single GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, ~600 pages in two
- volumes, offset printed.
- ________ $200 A box of 5 GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manuals.
- ________ $50 Calc Manual, ~590 pages. Calc is an extensible, advanced desk
- calculator and mathematical tool that runs under GNU Emacs.
- ________ $15 GDB Manual, ~170 pages, with a reference card.
- ________ $15 Texinfo Manual, ~220 pages. 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. Documents the termcap library and
- GNU's extensions to it. The GNU termcap library is included
- with GNU Emacs.
- ________ $10 Bison Manual, ~100 pages.
- ________ $15 Gawk Manual, ~200 pages.
- ________ $15 Make Manual, ~120 pages.
- The following reference cards:
- ________ $1 One GNU Emacs reference card, without the manual.
- ________ $5 Packet of ten GNU Emacs reference cards.
- ________ $1 One GDB reference card, without the manual.
- ________ $5 Packet of ten GDB reference cards.
- ________ Subtotal
- --------
- ________ In Massachusetts: add 5% sales tax, or give tax exempt number.
- We pay for shipping via UPS ground transportation in the contiguous 48 states
- and Canada.
- ________ In Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico, for shipping:
- - For Emacs Lisp Reference and Emacs Calc manuals, add $5 each,
- or $20 per box. For all other items, add $5 base charge,
- then $1 per item except reference cards.
- ________ If outside of U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, for shipping costs:
- - for tapes or unboxed manuals, please add $15 base
- charge, and then add $15 more for each tape or unboxed
- manual (not reference cards) in the order:
- Shipping cost for tapes and unboxed manuals = $15 + $15 * n;
- - for each box of Emacs Lisp Reference manuals,
- please add $70.
- ________ 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".
- Please mail orders to:
- Free Software Foundation, Inc.
- 675 Massachusetts Avenue
- Cambridge, MA 02139
- USA
- +1 617-876-3296
- This Order Form is EFFECTIVE 1 July 1992 - 31 January 1993
- Name:
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
- Mail Stop/Dept. Name
- -------------------------------------------------
- Organization:
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- In case of a problem with your order, or for overseas customs agents,
- please add your voice telephone number (not your FAX number):
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- For orders outside the US: Orders MUST be paid in US dollars. You are
- responsible for paying all duties, tariffs, and taxes. If you refuse
- to pay the charges, the shipper will return or abandon your order.
- Please write the telephone number that you want custom agents to call
- in the space provided above.
- This Order Form is EFFECTIVE 1 July 1992 - 31 January 1993
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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