On 02/08/2010, Andreas K. Foerster list@akfoerster.de wrote:
On Sun, Aug 01, 2010 at 12:55:02PM +0200, Gert Doering wrote:
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 06:07:41PM -0500, Rugxulo wrote:
But I think GNU intentionally doesn't focus as much on Win32 because it's proprietary.
There seems to be some misconception here on what "GNU" is - there is no "GNU overlord" that tells software developers what to do and what not to do.
Of course there is a GNU overlord: his name is Richard M. Stallman. He is the only one who can decide whether something is GNU software, or not. And he does tell developers what to do and what not, that's for sure!
[...]
Open Source developers do what they need to get their work done,
Who talked about "Open Source" here? And what does it have to do with GNU software?
Seems to me that there is some confusion underlying here: the GNU Project aims to produce an Open Source (more precisely, a "Free" as in speech) operating system and set of applications, and it has an overlord, namely: Richard Stallman. On the other hand, the GNU Project designed the GNU GPL (General Public License) to release the software, to ensure that the OS and friends remain forever "free" (as in speech). Now, a lot of OSS is release under GPL, to ensure "openness", but doesn't belong to the GNU project; the released software has then no overlord, save for the individual developer(s). They are not synonymous, since there are other licenses useful to release OSS.
Now, as far as GPC is concerned, I'm not positive about its status: has it been acknowledged as part of the GNU project, or is it only released as OSS, with GCC as its backend compiler?
Cheers,