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Ouch, that's no small claim. I was just learning emacs because it's GPL... But if it was stolen then, well, that's an entirely different story... What about the
by wiz21c 7y ago
Ouch, that's no small claim. I was just learning emacs because it's GPL... But if it was stolen then, well, that's an entirely different story... What about the other tools Stallman wrote ?
- sp332 7y agoWell it's big in a gossip sense, but what's actually going to change?
- Ill_ban_myself 7y agohistory. and that's a big deal.
- petre 7y agoNo small amount: gcc, gdb, gmake, made bison yacc compatible.
- notfashion 7y agoIf I were you I wouldn't make a personal ethical stand on this (by not learning GNU software). If you're the only one who does it, it can realistically only hurt you.
- lliamander 7y agoDon't learn emacs because it's GPL, or because of who wrote it. Learn emacs because it's a great tool.
- saagarjha 7y agoLearning great tools that aren’t under the GPL may leak to lock-in and pain in the future.
- klyrs 7y agoAs an OSS nerd working in today's corporate culture, I can assure you that GPL is its own form of lock-in. I had to abandon some of my favorite tools when I left university.
- lliamander 7y ago> I had to abandon some of my favorite tools when I left university. Tools, or libraries? The distinction I'm making here is between code that gets distributed with the final product, and code that only runs on your machine or just internally in the corporate network. I can understand a company not wanting to intermix GPL code with proprietary code that is shipped to customers, but not being able to use GPL software internally is a different matter and would be very strange.
- senderista 7y agoWhen I was at Amazon we were forbidden from using any GPLv3/AGPL software, including recent versions of GCC and Emacs (there was a special exception for Linux).
- saagarjha 7y agoThat sounds horrible :(
- mattl 7y agoLinux is GPLv2, so it would have been okay because of that I'm guessing.
- catalogia 7y agoI never saw nor heard of that rule being applied against developers using Emacs. And of course there wouldn't be a special excemption for Linux; Linux wouldn't need to be exempted from a ban on a license it doesn't have.
- senderista 7y ago
- lliamander 7y agoOh, the GPL certainly provides value to me as a user. But that value would mean very little if Emacs were not a fantastic tool.
- saagarjha 7y agoSure, a garbage tool licensed under the GPL isn’t all that useful.
- bch 7y agoLike vi? X11? Apache httpd? GPL is great, but not the only license that worthwhile software is written in...
- saagarjha 7y agoThere's a couple of licenses that have generally been OK; GPL isn't necessarily the only one that secures this particular guarantee.
- wiz21c 7y agoCame for the GPL, stayed for the editor :-)
- imron 7y agoDon't learn emacs, because vi is better ;-)
- lliamander 7y agoHere, let me show you spacemacs...
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago> All Gosling Emacs code was removed from GNU Emacs by version 16.56 (July 1985). with the possible exception of a few particularly involved sections of the display code. The latest versions of GNU Emacs (since August 2004) do not feature the skull-and-crossbones warning.