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RE: GDB is the GNU project's native debugger
- From: "Dave Korn" <dk at artimi dot com>
- To: "'Ian Lance Taylor'" <ian at wasabisystems dot com>
- Cc: <gdb at sources dot redhat dot com>
- Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:32:24 -0000
- Subject: RE: GDB is the GNU project's native debugger
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Lance Taylor
> Sent: 16 November 2004 18:11
> "Dave Korn" writes:
>
> > To my understanding, and correct me if you feel I've
> misunderstood, a major
> > part of the purpose of the GNU project is to encourage and
> evangelise the spread
> > of open source, and the strategic method for achieving that
> goal is to provide
> > free software, in particular a free toolchain, across as
> wide a range of
> > platforms as possible,
> For what it's worth, I believe that is to some degree a
> misunderstanding. The goal of the FSF is a completely free system
> (this goal has been achieved). This free system is intended to be
> superior both technically and philosophically, and thus encourage
> people to switch to it.
>
> Running free tools on non-free systems is interesting only to the
> extent that it helps lead to a fully free system. This happens
> because it encourages a broader range of people to put resources into
> improving the free tools, and thus improving the free system.
> However, running free tools on non-free systems is counterproductive
> to the extent that they make the non-free systems more usable, and
> thus delay the adoption of completely free systems.
>
> Using the free tools as advertisements of the effectiveness of the GNU
> project is not actually a goal of the FSF, contrary to what you
> suggest.
Hmm, so do you feel that my first para. would have been more near the truth if
it had said that the encouraging/evangelising of OSS in general was only a
*minor* goal of the gnu project, and that providing free tools on non-free
systems was a tactical method rather than strategic goal?
> All of the above is of course my beliefs based on what I saw as it
> happened, and do not represent any sort of official position by
> anybody.
You can very certainly <AOL> me on that one!
cheers,
DaveK
--
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....