RE: GDB is the GNU project's native debugger

["Dave Korn" <dk at artimi dot com>]

> -----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
-- 
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