GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 15, June, 1993

Table of Contents

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
Cambridge, MA   02139-3309
USA                               Electronic mail: [email protected]

GNU's Who

Michael Bushnell is still working on the GNU Hurd and maintains GNU tar. Jim Blandy has prepared GNU Emacs 19. Roland McGrath is polishing the GNU C library, maintaining GNU make and helping with the GNU Hurd.

Tom Lord is working on Oleo, the GNU spreadsheet, as well as Rx, a faster replacement for regex. Jan Brittenson is working on the C interpreter. Mike Haertel is making GNU grep POSIX-compliant and beginning work on optical character recognition. Noah Friedman is our system ambiguator, release uncoordinator and maintains a few GNU programs in his copious spare time.

Carl Hoffman has hopped aboard as fundraiser and conference organizer. Melissa Weisshaus is now in charge of Publications. She is currently editing new editions of our documentation and working on the GNU Utilities Manual.

Lisa `Opus' Goldstein has been promoted to Treasurer, after the resignation of Robert J. Chassell who had been our Secretary/Treasurer since FSF was formed 7 years ago; Bob is now writing his Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp and remains on our Board of Directors. Larissa Carlson is Lisa's new office assistant; Gena Lynne Bean has left us to further her education. Spike MacPhee assists RMS with administrative tasks. Charles Hannum works on typesetting and many other jobs.

Richard Stallman continues as a volunteer who does countless tasks such as C compiler maintenance. 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, Melissa Weisshaus, Noah S. Friedman, Charles Hannum, Richard Stallman and Leonard H. Tower Jr.

Illustrations by: Etienne Suvasa and Jamal Hannah

Japanese Edition by: Mieko Hikichi and Nobuyuki Hikichi

The GNU's Bulletin is published in January and June of each year. Please note that there is no postal mailing list. To get a copy, send your name and address with your request to the address on the front page. Enclosing a business sized self-addressed stamped envelope ($0.52) and/or a donation of a few dollars is appreciated but not required. If you're from outside the USA, sending a mailing label rather than an envelope and enough International Reply Coupons for a package of about 100 grams is appreciated but not required. (Including a few extra International Reply Coupons for copying costs is also appreciated.)

Copyright (C) 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

What Is the Free Software Foundation?

The Free Software Foundation is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on people's abilities and rights to copy, redistribute, understand and modify 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) (pronounced "guh-new") that will be upwardly compatible with Unix. Most 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 money 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 the 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. We are tax exempt; you can deduct donations to us on your U.S. tax returns.

The Officers of the Foundation are: Richard M. Stallman, President; and Lisa Goldstein, Treasurer/Secretary. The Foundation Board of Directors are: Richard M. Stallman, Gerald J. Sussman, Harold Abelson, Robert J. Chassell, and Leonard H. Tower Jr.

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.

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. 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, `SERVICE' in the GCC distribution and `/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/SERVICE' on anonymous FTP host prep.ai.mit.edu. 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 bug reports, announcements and questions. They are also gatewayed into USENET news as the gnu.* newsgroups. You can get a list of these mailing lists by mailing your request to either address on the front cover.

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. We do not have the resources to help individuals. We may send you a patch for a bug that helps us test the fix and ensure its quality. If your bug report does not evoke a solution from us, you may still get one from another user who reads 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 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: 

   UUNET Communications Services
   3110 Fairview Park Drive - Suite 570
   Falls Church, VA   22042
   USA
   Phone: 1-800-4UUNET4 or (703) 204-8000
   Fax: (703) 204-8001
   E-mail: [email protected]

A long list of commercial UUCP and Internet service providers is posted periodically to USENET in the newsgroup news.announce.newusers with `Subject: How to become a USENET site'.

Hundred Acre Consulting Expands

Hundred Acre Consulting continues to provide support and development services, with its specialty being the GNU CC and C++ compilers. It continues its policy of donating a percentage of its profit to the FSF. Since we described its services just 5 months ago, it has hired 3 more people and moved to bigger offices. The new address is: 

   Hundred Acre Consulting
   5301 Longley Lane, Suite D-144
   Reno, NV   89511
   USA
   Phone: (702) 829-9700 or 1-800-245-2885
   Fax: (702) 829-9926
   E-mail: [email protected]

Donations Translate Into Free Software

If you appreciate Emacs, GNU CC, Ghostscript and other free software, you may wish to help us make sure there is more in the future--remember, donations translate into more free software!

Your donation to us is tax-deductible in the United States. We gladly accept all currencies, although the U.S. dollar is the most convenient.

If your employer has a matching gifts program for charitable donations, please arrange to have your donation matched by your employer. If you do not know, please ask your personnel department. 

   $500     $250     $100     $50     other $________

   Other currency:________

Circle the amount you are donating, cut out this form, and send it with your donation to: 

   Free Software Foundation
   675 Massachusetts Avenue
   Cambridge, MA   02139-3309
   USA

Cygnus Matches Donations!

To encourage cash donations to the Free Software Foundation, Cygnus Support will match gifts by its employees, and by its customers and their employees.

Cygnus will match donations from its employees up to a maximum of $1000 per employee, and will match donations from customers and their employees at 50% to a maximum of $1000 per customer. Cygnus Support will donate up to a total of $10,000 in 1993.

Donations payable to the Free Software Foundation should be sent by eligible persons to Cygnus Support where they will be matched and forwarded to the FSF each quarter. The FSF will provide the contributor with a receipt to recognize the contribution (which is tax-deductible on U.S. tax returns). Donations sent to the FSF directly will not be matched, except by prior arrangement with Cygnus Support.

OCEAN Integrated-Circuit Design System

Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, has developed OCEAN, a comprehensive chip design package. It includes a full set of powerful tools for synthesis and verification of semi-custom sea-of-gates and gate-array chips. OCEAN covers the back-end of the design trajectory--from circuit level, down to layout and a working chip.

OCEAN provides interactive tools for placement, routing, simulation and extraction, either automatically or manually guided. It is available as free software, with full source code, and is known to run on Linux, HP and Sun workstations under the X Window System. For import and export of data, it knows about EDIF, BLIF, SLS, GDSII, CIF, SPICE and LDM.

You can obtain OCEAN by anonymous FTP from donau.et.tudelft.nl. For more information, contact [email protected] on the Internet.

Informal "GCC Consortium"

A group of companies including Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments & Analog Devices have pooled funds to support central maintenance of GNU CC. The maintenance will be coordinated by Richard Kenner of New York University.

The task of central maintenance is to take responsibility for fixing bugs, integrating and cleaning up contributions, making releases and writing high priority improvements.

Richard Stallman hopes this will enable him to undertake a new project.

GNUs Flashes

Moscow Free Software Conference

The International Center for Scientific and Technical Information hosted a free software conference in Moscow, April 19--23, 1993. Over two hundred people attended, arriving from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Guest of honor Richard Stallman explained why he writes free software. Among the topics of the conference were an Algol--68 to C converter, the Andrew User Interface System, Coexistence in a World of New Freedoms, Efficient Recognition of Static Search Sets with gperf, experiences from implementing a free Modula--2 translator, Russian Experiences from a Children's Computer Club, the Russian SQL server currently under development, the Russian PLATON Integrated Bank System, GNU Documentation in Russia, Linux in Education and Free Software in Russia. Other topics included resource organization (databases and directories), and free software business aspects.

The conference was sponsored by PC World magazine, PC Center "Techno", UrbanSoft Ltd. of St. Petersburg, Trading House Ostankino, KLOTO Scientific Research, Zelenogradsky Center "Zelax" and John Goode.

Write Victor P. Ivannikov, [email protected], Sergei Kuznetsov, [email protected], or Yuri P. Smirnov, [email protected], to contact GNU in Russia. For more information about the conference, contact Geoffrey S. Knauth, [email protected].

LPF Files Amicus Brief

The League for Programming Freedom has filed an amicus ("friend of the court") brief to support American Multi-Systems, a small business that was shut down by a court for violating two casino game software patents held by a company called Fortunet.

Fortunet, which has shut down other makers of casino games in the past, obtained a preliminary injunction restraining Vern Blanchard, the owner of AMS, from selling or servicing a Bingo program. The League for Programming Freedom asked its members for prior art. Marshall Midden and Steve Peltz found a multi--user Bingo program that had been played on the Plato system in the 1970's. The judge, however, granted the motion on the grounds that a time--sharing system playing Bingo is different from a networked system playing Bingo. Fortunet has an expert witness with an impressive resume who is expressing the most absurd opinions.

The LPF brief argues against the validity of software patents in general and these patents in particular. It also argues that they do not apply to the AMS Bingo system. The brief has already had an effect--the judge has scheduled a hearing to reconsider the injunction.

Fighting a patent in court is a grueling experience even if you ultimately succeed. The only feasible way to solve the problem of software patents is to address the problem as a whole. This is the main activity of the LPF. To succeed, it needs your support.

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, and even 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:

The League is not connected with the Free Software Foundation and is not itself a free software organization. The FSF supports the LPF because, like any software developer smaller than IBM, it is endangered by software patents. You are in danger too! It would be easy to ignore the problem until you or your employer is sued, but it is more prudent to organize before that happens.

If you haven't made up your mind yet, write to LPF for more information, or send Internet mail to [email protected]. The address is: 

   League for Programming Freedom
   1 Kendall Square - #143
   P.O. Box 9171
   Cambridge, MA   02139
   USA
   Phone: (617) 243-4091
   Email: [email protected]

Project GNU Wish List

Wishes for this issue are for:

The Text Software Initiative

The Text Software Initiative (TSI) is an international effort to promote the development and use of free software for all kinds of text analysis and manipulation, including markup of physical and logical text features, linguistic analysis and annotation, browsing and retrieval, statistical analysis and other text-related tasks in research in computational linguistics, humanities computing, terminology and lexicography, speech, etc. A central component of TSI is the development of guidelines and standards for text software, in order to ensure compatibility, extendability and reusability.

TSI borrows from the principles of FSF, by promoting distributed software development on a voluntary basis and protecting the freedom to copy, redistribute and modify software.

For more information, contact the project coordinators, who are Nancy Ide, [email protected] and Jean Veronis, [email protected].

Free Information Sources

There is more to freely redistributable information than software. Here is a partial list of organizations providing other forms of freely redistributable information.

Free Software and GNU in Japan

ICOT (Institute for Next Generation Computer Technology) is distributing the fifth-generation software produced by their research efforts as free software. This includes over 70 megabytes of programs for symbol processing, knowledge representation, problem solving and inference and natural language processing. For more information, contact [email protected].

Mieko, [email protected], and Nobuyuki Hikichi, [email protected], continue to work on the GNU Project in Japan. They have translated the FSF Order Form and GNU's Bulletin into Japanese and are distributing them widely. They ask for donations and also offer GNU software consulting. Recently they began redistributing their Japanese translation of the GNU General Public License Version 2. This translation is authorized by the FSF and is available by anonymous FTP from srawgw.sra.co.jp in `/pub/gnu/local-fix/GPL2-j'. Yukitoshi Fujimura from Addison--Wesley Publishers in Japan greatly contributed to this translation. Work is underway on a formal translation of the GNU Library General Public License.

Japanese versions of GNU Emacs (nemacs), Epoch (nepoch) and MULE are available and widely used in Japan. MULE (the MULtilingual Enhancement of GNU Emacs) can handle many character sets at once. Eventually its features will be merged into FSF's version of Emacs. Ken'ichi Handa, [email protected], is beta testing MULE; you can FTP sources from sh.wide.ad.jp in `/JAPAN/mule' or etlport.etl.go.jp in `/pub/mule'.

The Village Center, Inc. has printed a Japanese translation of the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual and uploaded the Texinfo source to various bulletin boards. Recently, they also published a copylefted book, Mieko's Think GNU. This appears to be the first copylefted publication in Japan, apart from those by the FSF. Part of the revenue generated is donated to the FSF. The address is: 

   Village Center, Inc.
   Kanda Amerex Bldg. 2F
   1-16, 3-Chome, Misaki-Cho
   Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101
   Japan

A group connected with the commercial personal computer network in Japan is writing and distributing a copylefted hardware (circuit diagram) design system that runs on a MIPS-architecture CPU. The t2 OS, which runs on this machine, is a subset of Unix that uses GCC and GDB as the system's compiler and debugger. They are also running Mach and MIPS-BSD.

Many groups in Japan distribute GNU software, including JUG (a PC user group), ASCII (publishers) and the Fujitsu FM Towns users group. Anonymous UUCP is also now available in Japan; for more information contact [email protected]. Publishers in Japan are steadily releasing more articles and books about GNU software and FSF.

You can order GNU software directly from the FSF. For Japan, we provide an FSF Order Form written in Japanese, as well as a toll--free facsimile number; ask [email protected] for a copy of the order form. We encourage you to buy tapes: every 150 tape orders allows FSF to hire a programmer for a year to write more free software.

The FSF does not distribute nemacs, nepoch or MULE on tape; however MULE is available on the GNU Source Code CD-ROM.

Project GNU Status Report

GNU Documentation

GNU is dedicated to having quality, easy-to-use on-line and printed 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 manuals are distributed as Texinfo source files, which yield both typeset hardcopy and on-line hypertext-like display via the menu-driven Info system. These manuals, source for which is provided with our software, are also available in hardcopy; see the "Free Software Foundation Order Form."

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 Emacs, Emacs Lisp Reference, Texinfo, GAWK, Make, GDB, Bison and Flex manuals have this binding. All other GNU manuals are also bound so they lie flat when opened, using other technologies.

The Emacs Manual describes editing with GNU Emacs. The new 8th edition has been updated for Emacs 19. It also explains advanced features, such as outline mode and regular expression search, how to use special modes for programming in languages like C++ and TeX, how to use the tags utility, how to compile and correct code, and how to make your own keybindings and other elementary customizations.

The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual covers this programming language in great depth, including data types, control structures, functions, macros, syntax tables, searching and matching, modes, windows, keymaps, markers, byte compilation and the operating system interface.

The Texinfo Manual explains the markup language used to generate both the online Info documentation and typeset 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 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 and record manipulation language.

The Make Manual describes GNU make, a program used to rebuild parts of other programs. The manual tells how to write makefiles, which specify how a program is to be compiled and how its files depend on each other. The new edition of the manual describes the new features in make version 3.64, and includes a new introductory chapter for novice users, as well as a new section on automatically generated dependencies.

Debugging with GDB explains how to use the GNU Debugger, run your program under debugger control, examine and alter data, modify the flow of control within the program and use GDB through GNU Emacs.

The Bison Manual teaches you how to write context-free grammars for the Bison program that convert into C-coded parsers. You need no prior knowledge of parser generators.

The Flex Manual tells you how to write a lexical scanner definition for the flex program to create a C-coded scanner that will recognize the patterns described. You need no prior knowledge of scanner generators.

Using and Porting GNU CC explains how to run, install and port the GNU C compiler. Currently, we are distributing two versions of GCC, version 1 and version 2, each documented by a different edition of the manual.

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.

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 C Library Reference Manual describes almost all of the facilities of the GNU C library, including both what Unix calls "library functions" and "system calls." We are doing limited print runs of this manual until it becomes more stable. It is new, and we would like corrections and improvements. Please send them to [email protected].

GNU Software Available Now

We offer Unix software source distributions tapes in tar format on the following media:

We also offer:

The contents of the various 9-track and cartridge tapes for Unix systems are the same (except for the RS/6000 Emacs tape, which also has executables); only the media are different (see the "Free Software Foundation Order Form"). Source code for the manuals comes in Texinfo format. We welcome all bug reports.

Some of the files on the tapes may be compressed with gzip to make them fit. Refer to the top-level `README' file at the beginning of each tape for instructions on uncompressing them. uncompress and unpack do not work!

Version numbers listed after 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

Contents of the Scheme Tape

This tape contains MIT Scheme 7.1. 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. The current version conforms to the "Revised^4 Report On the Algorithmic Language Scheme" (MIT AI Lab Memo 848b), for which TeX source is included.

MIT Scheme is written in C, but is presently hard to bootstrap. Binaries which can be used to bootstrap Scheme are available for the following systems:

If your system is not on this list and you don't enjoy the bootstrap challenge, see the "JACAL" entry in the "Project GNU Status Report."

Contents of the Languages Tape

This tape contains programming tools: compilers, interpreters and related programs (parsers, conversion programs, debuggers, etc.).

Contents of the Utilities Tape

This tape consists mostly of smaller utilities and miscellaneous applications not available on the other GNU tapes.

Contents of the Experimental Tape

This tape includes software which 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. The contents of this tape are transient; as the programs become stable, they will replace older versions on other tapes. Please send bug reports to the address in the notes for each program on the tape. Note that Emacs 19, in beta test, is on the Emacs tape.

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 of the core software, documentation and some contributed clients. We call this 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 User Interface System, games and other programs.

The X11 Required tape also contains all fixes and patches released to date. We update this tape as new fizes and patches are released.

Berkeley Networking 2 Tape

The Berkeley "Net2" release contains the second 4.3 BSD distribution and is newer than both 4.3 BSD-Tahoe and 4.3 BSD-Reno. It includes most of the 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 (we have replacements on other tapes for many of the missing programs). This release also contains third party software including Kerberos and some GNU software.

VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes

We offer two VMS tapes. One has just the GNU Emacs editor. The other has the GNU C compiler, Bison (to compile GCC), GAS (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, as the DEC VMS C compiler cannot compile GCC. Please do not ask us to devote effort to VMS support, because it is peripheral to the GNU Project.

Tape Subscription Service

The FSF has a tape subscription service. If you do not have net access, the subscription service enables you to stay current with the latest FSF developments. For a one-time cost equivalent to three tapes, we will mail you four new versions of the tape of your choice over the course of the next year.

Every quarter, we will send you a new version of an Emacs, Languages, Utilities, Experimental or MIT X Window System Required tape. The BSD Net-2, MIT Scheme and the MIT X Window System Optional tapes are not changed often enough to warrant quarterly updates.

Since Emacs 19 is now on the Emacs Tape, a subscription will be a convenient way to keep current with Emacs 19 updates as it moves through beta-test.

A subscription is also an easy way to keep up with the regular bug fixes to the MIT X Window System. We update the X11 Required tape, as fixes and patches for the X Window System are issued throughout the year.

See section "Subscriptions" in the "Free Software Foundation Order Form".

How to Get GNU Software

All the software and publications from 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.

You can get GNU software direct from the FSF by ordering diskettes, a tape or a CD-ROM. Such orders provide most of the funds for the FSF staff, so please support us by ordering if you can. See the "Free Software Foundation Order Form".

There are also third party groups who distribute our software; they do not work with us, but can provide our software in other forms. For your convenience we list some of them; see "Free Software for Microcomputers". Please note that the Free Software Foundation is not affiliated with them in any way and is responsible for neither the currency of their versions nor the swiftness of their responses.

If you have Internet access and cannot access one of the hosts below, you can get the software via anonymous FTP from GNU's distribution host prep.ai.mit.edu (the IP address is 18.71.0.38). For more information, get file `/pub/gnu/GETTING.GNU.SOFTWARE'. prep is a very busy host and only allows a limited number of FTP logins at any given time. Please use another machine, if at all possible.

These TCP/IP Internet sites provide GNU software via anonymous FTP (program: ftp, user: anonymous, password: your e-mail address, mode: binary). Please try them before prep.ai.mit.edu.

Those on JANET can look under src.doc.ic.ac.uk in `/gnu'.

You can get some GNU programs via UUCP. Ohio State University posts their UUCP instructions regularly to newsgroup comp.sources.d on USENET. These people will send you UUCP instructions via electronic mail: 

hao!scicom!qetzal!upba!ugn!nepa!denny, uunet!hutch!barber,
[email protected] (Europe), [email protected], acornrc!bob,
[email protected] (Japan), [email protected],
[email protected]

For those without Internet access, see the section "Free Software Support" for information on getting electronic mail and file transfer via UUCP.

GNU Source Code CD-ROM

The Free Software Foundation has produced its second CD-ROM. This CD-ROM contains sources for all of the programs on the Emacs, Languages, Utilities, Experimental, and the MIT X Required and Optional tapes. In addition, the CD-ROM contains the sources for MULE 0.9.7 (see "Free Software and GNU in Japan"); some packages ported to Intel 80386 and 80486-based machines running MS-DOS: Demacs, DJGPP 2.4 and MIT Scheme 7.2; and a snapshot of the Emacs Lisp Archive at Ohio State University. (You can get libraries in this archive by UUCP (ask [email protected] for directions) or by anonymous FTP from archive.cis.ohio-state.edu in `/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive'.)

The CD-ROM does not contain the contents of the MIT Scheme, VMS or Net2 tapes.

The version numbers of the software on the CD-ROM correspond to the version numbers listed in "GNU Software Available Now."

The CD-ROM is in ISO 9660 format and can be mounted as a read-only file system on most operating systems. If your driver supports it you can mount the CD-ROM with "Rock Ridge" extensions and it will look just like an ordinary Unix file system, rather than one full of truncated and otherwise mangled names that fit the vanilla ISO 9660 specifications.

You can build most of this software without needing to copy the sources off the CD. It requires only enough free disk space for the object files and the intermediate build targets. Except for the GCC binaries for SPARCstations running Solaris 2.0 and the MS-DOS binaries, there are no precompiled programs on this CD. You will need a C compiler (programs which need some other interpreter or compiler normally provide the C source for a bootstrapping program).

The CD costs $400 if you are buying it for a business or other organization, or $100 if you are buying it for yourself.

The Deluxe Distribution

The Free Software Foundation has been repeatedly asked to create a package that provides executables for all of our software. Usually we offer only sources. In addition to providing binaries with the source code, the Deluxe Distribution includes copies of all our printed manuals and reference cards.

The FSF Deluxe Distribution contains the binaries and sources to hundreds of different programs including GNU Emacs, the GNU C Compiler, the GNU Debugger, the complete MIT X Window System and the GNU utilities.

You may choose one of these machines and operating systems: HP 9000 series 200, 300, 700 or 800 (4.3 BSD or HP-UX); RS/6000 (AIX); SONY News 68k (4.3 BSD or NewsOS 4); Sun-3, Sun-4 or SPARC (SunOS 4 or Solaris). If your machine or system is not listed, or if a specific program has not been ported to that machine, please call the FSF office at the phone number below or send e-mail to [email protected].

We will supply the software on one of these media in Unix tar format: 1600 or 6250 bpi, 1/2 inch, reel to reel tape; Sun DC300XLP 1/4 inch cartridge, QIC-24; HP 16 track DC600HC 1/4 inch cartridge; IBM RS/6000 1/4 inch cartridge, QIC-150; Exabyte 8mm tape. If your computer cannot read any of these, please call us.

The manuals included are one each of the Bison, Calc, Gawk, GNU C Compiler, GNU C Library, GNU Debugger, Flex, GNU Emacs Lisp Reference, Make, Texinfo and Termcap manuals; six copies of the manual for GNU Emacs; and a packet of reference cards each for GNU Emacs, Calc, the GNU Debugger, Bison and Flex.

In addition to the printed and on-line documentation, every Deluxe Distribution includes a CD-ROM (in ISO 9660 format with Rock Ridge extensions) that contains sources of our software.

The Deluxe Distribution costs $5000. This package is for people who want to get everything compiled for them or who want to make a purchase that helps the FSF in a large way. To order the package, please fill out the "Free Software Foundation Order Form", and send it to: 

   Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   675 Massachusetts Avenue
   Cambridge, MA   02139-3309
   USA
   Phone: (617) 876-3296
   Electronic mail: [email protected]

MS-DOS Distribution

FSF distributes, on 3.5 inch 1.44MB diskettes, some of the GNU software that has been ported to MS-DOS. The disks have both sources and executables.

Contents of the Demacs diskettes

Demacs is a version of GNU Emacs 18.55 ported to MS-DOS, with some changes from Emacs 18.57. Two versions are actually included--one which handles 8-bit character sets, and one, based on Nemacs, which handles 16-bit character sets, including Kanji. FSF distributes it on five diskettes.

Demacs runs on Intel 80386 and 80486--based machines running MS-DOS. It is compatible with XMS memory managers and VCPI, but not with Microsoft Windows extended mode or other DPMI managers.

Contents of the DJGPP diskettes

DJGPP is a complete port of GCC, libraries, development utilities and a symbolic debugger, for Intel 80386 and 80486--based machines running MS-DOS. FSF distributes it on four diskettes.

DJGPP requires at least 5MB of hard disk space to install, and 512K of RAM to use. It is compatible with XMS memory managers and VCPI, but not with Microsoft Windows extended mode or other DPMI managers. It cannot emulate multitasking (e.g. the Unix fork system call) or signals.

Contents of the Selected Utilities diskettes

The GNUish MS-DOS Project releases GNU software ported to PC compatibles. In general, this software will run on 8086 and 80286--based machines; an 80386 is not required. Some of these utilities are necessarily missing features. FSF distributes it on a set of diskettes.

We are distributing these utilities, both source and executables: RCS, flex, GAWK, cpio, diff, MicroEmacs, find, some file utilities, gdbm, grep, libc, ptx, indent, less, m4, make, sed, shar, sort and Texinfo.

Contents of the Windows diskette

We are distributing versions of GNU Chess and gnuplot ported to Microsoft Windows, on a single diskette, containing both source and executables.

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 distributing a few such programs on tape, CD-ROM and diskette. We are also willing to publish information about groups who do support and maintain them. If you are aware of any such efforts, please send the details, including postal addresses, archive sites and mailing lists, to either address on the front cover.

See "MS-DOS Distribution" for more information about microcomputer software available from the FSF. Please do not ask us about any other software. The FSF does not maintain any of it and has no additional information.

FSF T-shirt

We still have our Free Software Foundation T-shirts available, designed by Cambridge artist Jamal Hannah. The front of the t-shirt has an image of a GNU hacking at a workstation with the text "GNU's Not Unix" above and the text "Free Software Foundation" below. They are available in two colors, Natural and Black. Natural is an off-white, unbleached, undyed, environment-friendly cotton, printed with black ink, and is great for tye-dyeing or displaying as is. Black is printed with white ink and is perfect for late night hacking. All shirts are thick 100% cotton, and are available in sizes M, L, XL and XXL.

Use the "Free Software Foundation Order Form" to order your shirt, and consider getting one as a present for your favorite hacker!

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. 

                        -Vaclav Havel

Thank GNUs

Thanks to all those mentioned above in "Informal GCC Consortium", "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.

Thanks to the Max-Plack-Institut fuer Informatik Im Stadtwald for buying our Deluxe Distribution package.

Thanks are due to the following people for their assistance in Japan: Nobuyuki Hikichi & Mieko Hikichi, Ken'ichi Handa, Dr. Ikuo Takeuchi, Bob Myers, David Littleboy, Mike Kandall, Prof. Masayuki Ida, SEA & Japan Unix Society, Michio Nagashima & Paul Abramson. Thanks to Village Center, Inc., ASCII Corporation, A.I. Soft and many others in Japan, for their continued donations and support.

Thanks again to the USENIX Association for letting us have a table at their conference; to the Open Software Foundation for their continued support; and to Cygnus Support for assisting Project GNU in many ways.

Thanks to Wired Magazine and Barry Meikle of the University of Toronto Bookstore for donating us ad space in their separate publications.

Thanks to Warren A. Hunt, Jr. and Computational Logic, Inc. for their donation and support.

Jim Blandy thanks Jamie Zawinski for his implementation of some of the X-related features in Emacs 19.

Thanks go out to all those who have either lent or donated machines, including Cygnus Support for a Sun SPARCstation; Hewlett-Packard for two 80486, six 68030 and four Spectrum computers; Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp. for a Sun-4/110; CMU's Mach Project for a Sun-3/60; Intel Corp. for their 386 machine; NeXT for their workstation; the MIT Media Laboratory for a Hewlett-Packard 68020; SONY Corp. and Software Research Associates, Inc., both of Tokyo, for three SONY News workstations; IBM Corp. for an RS/6000; 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/PCs; 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 all those who sent money and offered help.

Thanks also to all those who support us by ordering manuals, distribution tapes, diskettes and CD-ROMs.

The creation of this bulletin is our way of thanking all who have expressed interest in what we are doing. 

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Free Software Foundation, Inc.                 | stamp |
675 Massachusetts Avenue                       |       |
Cambridge, MA  02139-3309                      | here  |
USA                                            |       |
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