| www.delorie.com/gnu/bulletins/bull21.html | search |
| www.delorie.com/gnu/bulletins/bull21.html | search |
GNU's Who
Administrivia and Copyright
Other GPL'ed Software
What Is the FSF?
What Is Copyleft?
What Is the Hurd?
What Is a GNU/Linux system?
FSF and Debian Separate Amicably
Some Bad News about Pine
Freely Available Texts
First Free Software Conference
GNUs Flashes
Help from Free Software Companies
Free Software Redistributors Donate
Free Software Support
What Is the LPF?
News from the LPF
GNU & Other Free Software in Japan
Help the GNU Translation Project
Forthcoming GNUs
GNU Software
Configuring GNU Software
GNU Software Currently Available
Program/Package Cross Reference
CD-ROMs
Pricing of the GNU CD-ROMs
What do the Different Prices Mean?
Why Is There an Individual Price?
Is There a Maximum Price?
December 1995 Compiler Tools Binaries CD-ROM
MS-DOS/Windows Book with CD-ROM
Source Code CD-ROMs
July 1996 Source Code CD-ROMs
December 1995 Source Code CD-ROMs
November 1993 Source Code CD-ROM
CD-ROM Subscription Service
The Deluxe Distribution
GNU Documentation
How to Get GNU Software
FSF T-shirt
Free Software for Microcomputers
Project GNU Wish List
Thank GNUs
Donations Translate Into Free Software
Cygnus Matches Donations!
Free Software Foundation Order Form
Address Page
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Miles Bader and
Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG (whose name used to be Michael)
work on the Hurd.
Roland McGrath
still works on the Hurd
and maintains make and the GNU C library; after 9 years with us, he
has decided to join the University of Utah's Flux Project
(see section GNUs Flashes, for information on this project). We thank him for
his work and dedication.
Karl Heuer enhances Emacs and is in charge of making Deluxe
Distributions.
Jim Blandy has returned to the FSF temporarily,
and is working on a desktop interface.
Melissa Weisshaus is working on special documentation projects.
Peter H. Salus has joined us to do fundraising and publishing and manage the non-technical side of the FSF. He ran the section First Free Software Conference. Carol Botteron has joined us to manage the FSF Office, and Tami Friedman has joined the Office staff. Brian Youmans is our new Distribution Manager. Robert J. Chassell is our Secretary/Treasurer. Daniel Hagerty has left the FSF; we thank him for his hard work.
Thanks to volunteer Scott Ewing for helping to coordinate all the volunteers in the GNU Project. Richard Stallman continues as a volunteer who does countless tasks, such as Emacs maintenance. Volunteers Phil Nelson and Len Tower work on our Web site. Len also remains our online JOAT (jack-of-all-trades), for mailing lists, gnUSENET newsgroups, information requests, etc.
Written and Edited by: Melissa Weisshaus, Robert J. Chassell,
and Leonard H. Tower Jr.
Illustrations by: Etienne Suvasa
Japanese Edition by: Mieko Hikichi and Nobuyuki Hikichi
ISSN (International Standard Serial Number): 1075-7813
The GNU's Bulletin is published at the end of January and the end of July 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 top menu. Enclosing $0.78 in U.S. Postage and/or a donation of a few dollars is appreciated but not required. If you're outside the USA, sending a mailing label 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) 1996 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
We maintain a list of copylefted software that we do not presently
distribute. FTP the file
`/pub/gnu/GPLedSoftware' from a GNU FTP host (listed in section How to Get GNU Software).
Please let us know of additional programs we should mention.
We don't list Emacs Lisp Libraries;
host archive.cis.ohio-state.edu has a list of those you can FTP
in the file `/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/LCD-datafile.Z'.
The Free Software Foundation is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on people's right to use, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. We do this by promoting the development and use of free software. 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 being used and distributed.
The word "free" in our name refers to freedom, not price. You may or may not pay money to get GNU software, but either way you have three specific freedoms once you get it: first, the freedom to copy a program, and distribute it to your friends and co-workers; second, the freedom to change a program as you wish, by having full access to source code; third, the freedom to distribute a modified version and thus help build the community. Free software means you can study the source and learn how such programs are written; it means you can port it or improve it, and then share your work with others.
If you redistribute GNU software, you may charge a distribution fee or you may give it away, so long as you include the source code and the GNU General Public License; see section What Is Copyleft?, for details.
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 to use a proprietary system.
Besides developing GNU, the FSF distributes GNU software and manuals for a distribution fee, and accepts gifts (tax-deductible in the U.S.) to support GNU development. Most of the FSF's funds come from its distribution service.
The Board of the Foundation is: Richard M. Stallman, President;
Robert J. Chassell, Secretary/Treasurer; Gerald J. Sussman,
Harold Abelson, and Leonard H. Tower Jr., Directors.
The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public domain, uncopyrighted. But this permits proprietary modified versions, which deny others the freedom to redistribute and modify; such versions undermine the goal of giving freedom to all users. To prevent this, copyleft uses copyrights in a novel manner. Typically, copyrights take away freedoms; copyleft preserves them. It is a legal instrument that requires those who pass on a program to include the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the code; the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable.
The copyleft used by the GNU Project is made from the 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 aforementioned freedoms. An alternate form, the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL), applies to a few (but not most) GNU libraries. This license permits linking the libraries into proprietary executables under certain conditions. The appropriate license is included in each GNU source code distribution and in many manuals. Printed copies are available upon request.
We strongly encourage you to copyleft your programs and documentation, and we have made it as simple as possible for you to do so. The details on how to apply either form of GNU Public License appear at the end of each license.
In February, the FSF hosted the First Conference on Freely Redistributable Software at the Cambridge (MA) Marriott. The Conference drew 185 attendees from 14 countries, with Linus Torvalds and Richard M. Stallman as the keynote speakers, eight tutorials, eleven technical presentations, and a half dozen BoFs.
The Conference Proceedings have been published and are available from the FSF while supplies last (see the FSF Order Form, in the centerfold).
The FSF is currently negotiating with groups in Europe and the U.S. concerning co-sponsorship of future events.
The FSF thanks everyone who made this Conference a success, especially the program committee: Peter H. Salus (Chair), Lisa A. Bloch, Robert J. Chassell, Chris Demetriou, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Rich Morin, Eric S. Raymond, & Vernor Vinge. We also thank John Gilmore & Red Hat Software for subsidizing several of the European presenters, Stuart McRobert of Imperial College, London for producing the Proceedings, & Cygnus Support for donating the funds to print them.
The technical presentations were:
There will be a second conference, co-sponsored by Cygnus Support, in
February, 1997. See the Web site at `http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu'
or contact gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu later this year for more
information.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strive for perfection in everything. Take the best that exists and make it better. If it doesn't exist, create it. Accept nothing nearly right or good enough.
- Sir Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls-Royce
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Hurd is a collection of server processes that run on top of Mach, a free message-passing microkernel developed at CMU. The Hurd and Mach together form the kernel of the GNU operating system. The GNU C Library implements the Unix "system call" interface by sending messages to Hurd servers as appropriate.
The Hurd allows users to create and share useful projects without knowing much about the internal workings of the system--projects that might never have been attempted without freely available source, a well-designed interface, and a multiple server design. The Hurd is thus like other expandable GNU software, e.g. Emacs and GUILE.
Currently, there are free ports of the Mach kernel to the 386 PC, the DEC PMAX workstation, and several other machines, with more in progress, including the Amiga, PA-RISC HP 700, & DEC Alpha-3000. Contact us if you want to help with one of these or start your own. Porting the GNU Hurd & GNU C Library is easy (easier than porting GNU Emacs, certainly easier than porting the compiler) once a Mach port to a particular platform exists. Right now we are using the University of Utah's Mach distribution which we hope will be unified with the distribution produced by the Open Software Foundation.
The first test version of the Hurd was just released. See section GNUs Flashes, for a report on recent progress.
We need help with significant Hurd-related projects.
Experienced system programmers who are interested should send mail
to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu. Porting the Mach kernel or the GNU C
Library to new systems is another way to help.
You can get the Hurd from prep.ai.mit.edu, our FTP distribution
site, along with complete binaries for an i386 GNU system. We will not be
distributing these things on CD-ROM until they are more stable.
by Richard M. Stallman
A GNU/Linux system is a system which is a combination of Linux and GNU.
Linux is a kernel, compatible with the Unix kernel, written by Linus Torvalds.
GNU is a Unix-like operating system. We started the GNU Project in 1984 with the aim of bringing such a system into existence. A Unix-like operating system consists of many components; we had to obtain each of the important components somehow. The job was so large that many of the people who sympathized with the goal were discouraged from attempting it, but we decided we would reach the goal no matter how long it took.
We found some components already available as free software--for example, the X Window System and TeX. Naturally we decided to use them, since the job was big enough even with short cuts. We obtained other components by helping to convince their developers to make them free--for example, the Berkeley network utilities.
The rest of components, we had to write. These include GNU Emacs, the GNU C & C++ compilers & libraries, Bash, Ghostscript, Groff, & many others.
All of these various components--those we wrote, those we helped make free, and those we found already available--together make up the GNU system.
Until recently, users couldn't run the GNU system, because one part (the kernel; see section What Is the Hurd?) was not yet ready. (We made the first test release just recently.) However, for a couple of years now, it has been possible to put together the Linux kernel and the almost-complete GNU system, resulting in a complete Unix-like free operating system suitable for actual use.
While commonly referred to as "Linux systems", we prefer the term "Linux-based GNU systems," or "GNU/Linux systems" for short, since these systems are mostly the same as the GNU system. This gives Linus credit for the kernel that he wrote, while still indicating that these systems as a whole are essentially variants of the GNU system.
We also occasionally use the term "GNU/Hurd system" to emphasize that we mean a version of the GNU system which uses the Hurd rather than Linux.
We think it is proper to give the GNU Project credit for making the free Unix-like system that it set out for a decade ago. But there is a more important reason for friends of GNU to use names like "Linux-based GNU system" instead of "Linux system." This is to help spread the GNU Project's philosophical idea: that there is ethical importance in freeing users to share software and cooperate in improving it; that free software belongs to a community, and people who benefit from the community should feel a moral obligation to help build the community when they have a chance.
When users install a system which they call "Linux," they can easily miss ever seeing the GNU idea. When businesses promote a system and call it "Linux," they can easily avoid bringing the GNU idea to users' attention. And if the GNU idea is not widely known, fewer people will write free software.
A conference was recently announced on the topic of developing "Linux applications"; although the conference is about using the GNU system, the conference announcement did not mention GNU.
The announcement does not even hint that there is any ethical reason to contribute to free software. On the contrary, it offers a panel entitled, "Licenses and licensing--I don't want to give away my application!!!" (The three `!' marks appear in the announcement). Even the title encourages people writing new software (which could enhance all free operating systems) to make it proprietary instead, thus contributing nothing to the free software community.
It would be harder to express that attitude if everyone knew that the topic is a variant of the GNU system. It is up to you and us to make sure they know. To do that, we have to inform people using variant GNU systems that that is what they are doing.
So please use the term "Linux-based GNU system" or "GNU/Linux" when you talk about a system which is a combination of Linux and GNU. At first, it may feel strange to go against the flow, but think how much more "against the flow" it was to start writing a free operating system. We did it, and you can do it.
Ian Murdock started the effort to put together Debian, a Linux-based GNU system designed to be easy to install & upgrade. He asked for & got the FSF's sponsorship for the project, hoping that besides being useful in its own right, it would give the FSF experience in packaging up a complete GNU system.
This March, Murdock stepped down as the head of Debian, having become too busy with other work. The new team head did not want FSF sponsorship. As a result, the FSF is no longer a sponsor of Debian. We wish the situation were otherwise. However, we are working together on some design issues.
We have not yet decided whether the FSF will distribute a CD-ROM of Debian, since we don't know if that would achieve enough of the goals that we previously hoped for as sponsors of the system.
webmaster@www.gnu.ai.mit.edu.
enscript,
Exim,
gcal,
Generic NQS,
geomview,
GNAT,
GNUMATH,
ID Utils,
Inetutils,
Karma,
Lynx,
Maxima,
Miscfiles,
Smail,
TIFF,
and
WN.
See section GNU Software, for more information about these packages.
Also on the CD-ROMs are full distributions of X11R6.1, MIT Scheme, Emacs,
GCC, and current versions of all other GNU Software.
bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu. See the entry in section GNU Software Now Available, for more information.
Support for MS-DOS and Windows 95 is greatly improved. You can now compile Emacs with DJGPP version 2; asynchronous subprocesses now work on Windows 95; and many additional Lisp packages now work on MS-DOS.
fluke-interest-request@cs.utah.edu.
The Flux OS Toolkit is a framework & set of easily reusable modules to
provide infrastructure needed to build OS components.
To get an x86 alpha release, email
oskit-users-request@cs.utah.edu, or see the Web site.
Mach 4(x86) is a version of the Mach kernel which increases Mach 3's
ease of use & practicality in a PC environment; has a much simpler
GNU-style build environment; boots using GNU/Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, or
Mach boot loaders; has source-compatibility with almost all Linux
device drivers; and supports the Lites server. Utah provides sources &
pre-built binaries for the kernel and Lites server, & the compiler tools to
build Mach 4 under GNU/Linux, NetBSD, or FreeBSD. To get on the list, send
mail to mach4-users-request@cs.utah.edu.
Lites is a usable Mach-based Unix single server based on 4.4 BSD--Lite,
originally done by CMU & HUT. x86 Lites supports binary compatibility with
GNU/Linux, NetBSD, & FreeBSD, & groks Linux filesystems. Utah distributes the
current Lites version, with binaries for x86 & PA-RISC. The PA version
runs BSD/ELF & most HP-UX binaries.
OMOS is a fully programmable class server/linker/loader using Scheme as
its meta-language & the BFD package for portability.
PA-RISC/SOM & x86/a.out are supported.
FTP to `flux.cs.utah.edu:/flux'
or see the Web page: `http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/'
to get them.
Send mail to flux-dist@cs.utah.edu
or
phone +1-801-585-3271 for more information.
make 3.75 runs native on three new ports since version 3.74:
AmigaDOS, VMS, and Windows NT/Windows95.
The SNOW 2.1 CD producers added the words "Includes $5 donation to the FSF" to the front of their CD. Potential buyers will know just how much of the price is for the FSF & how much is for the redistributor.
The Sun Users Group Deutschland has made it even clearer: their CD says, "Price 90 DM, + 12 DM donation to the FSF."
ASCII Corporation (Japan) has also donated to the FSF and plans to add a donation to the price of their next GNU software CD-ROM.
Austin Code Works, a free software redistributor, supports free software development by giving the FSF 20% of the selling price for the GNU software CDs they produce & sell.
TOHDO-SHA is donating 400 yen to the FSF for each copy of The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, Japanese Edition sold at bookstores in Japan.
CQ Publishing made a large donation from the sales of their GAWK book in Japanese, and Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. is donating 3% of the profits from selling "Effective AWK Programming", by Arnold Robbins. Walnut Creek CDROM gives us part of their selling price every month.
In the long run, the success of free software depends on how much new free software people develop. Free software distribution offers an opportunity to raise funds for such development in an ethical way. These redistributors have made use of the opportunity. Many others let it go to waste.
You can help promote free software development by convincing for-a-fee redistributors to contribute--either by doing development themselves or by donating to development organizations (the FSF and others).
The way to convince distributors to contribute is to demand and expect this of them. This means choosing among distributors partly by how much they give to free software development. Then you can show distributors they must compete to be the one who gives the most.
To make this work, you must insist on numbers that you can compare, such as, "We will give ten dollars to the Foobar project for each disk sold." A vague commitment, such as "A portion of the profits is donated," doesn't give you a basis for comparison. Even a precise fraction "of the profits from this disk" is not very meaningful, since creative accounting and unrelated business decisions can greatly alter what fraction of the sales price counts as profit.
Also, press developers for firm information about what kind of development they do or support. Some kinds make much more long-term difference than others. For example, maintaining a separate version of a GNU program contributes very little; maintaining a program on behalf of the GNU Project contributes much. Easy new ports contribute little, since someone else would surely do them; difficult ports such as adding a new CPU to the GNU compiler or Mach contribute more; major new features & programs contribute the most.
By establishing the idea that supporting further development is "the proper thing to do" when distributing free software for a fee, we can assure a steady flow of resources for making more free software.
When choosing a free software business, ask those you are considering how much they do to assist free software development, e.g., by contributing money to free software development or by writing free software improvements themselves for general use. By basing your decision partially on this factor, you can help encourage those who profit from free software to contribute to its growth.
Wingnut (SRA's special GNU support group) regularly donates a part of its income to the FSF to support the development of new GNU programs. Listing them here is our way of thanking them. Wingnut has made a pledge to donate 10% of their income to the FSF, and has purchased several Deluxe Distribution packages in Japan. Also see section Cygnus Matches Donations!.
Wingnut Project
Software Research Associates, Inc.
1-1-1 Hirakawa-cho, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 102, Japan
Phone: (+81-3)3234-2611
Fax: (+81-3)3942-5174
E-mail: info-wingnut@sra.co.jp
WWW: `http://www.sra.co.jp/public/sra/product/wingnut/'
Pine is a simple electronic mail reader for beginning users, which we have included on our Source CDs since 1995.
In March of 1996, the Pine developers released a new version with new usage restrictions. The new terms do not permit everyone to redistribute, and do not permit distribution of modified versions at all. Either restriction would be enough to prevent Pine from being free software.
The previous versions of Pine remain free; however, no substantial program is bug-free, and every program needs to be maintained. So this April the Free Software Foundation recruited a team of volunteers to carry on development of the free version of Pine, starting from the last available free release (3.91).
Forking a program is unfortunate; people should try their best to work together before giving up and working separately. So before embarking on separate development, we tried our best to persuade the old developers to make their work free software once again. In the end, though, they rejected our plea.
The new team has just started, and has yet to do a release. However, you
can report bugs in Pine 3.91 to them at the address
bug-pine@prep.ai.mit.edu, so they can be fixed in the next
release of the free alternative version of Pine.
The Free Software Foundation does not provide technical support. Our mission is developing software, because that is the most time-efficient way to increase what free software can do. We leave it to others to earn a living providing support. We see programmers as providing a service, much as doctors and lawyers do now; both medical and legal knowledge are freely redistributable, but their practitioners charge for service.
The GNU Service Directory is a list of people who offer support and other consulting services. It is `/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/SERVICE' on a GNU FTP host (listed in section How to Get GNU Software), on the World Wide Web at URL `http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/mirror/prep/service.html', in the file `etc/SERVICE' in the GNU Emacs distribution, and the file `SERVICE' in the GCC distribution. Contact us to get a copy or to be listed in it. Those service providers who share their income with the FSF are listed in section Help from Free Software Companies.
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 request a list of the mailing lists from either address on
the top menu.
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; they are part of preparing a new improved version. We may send you a patch for a bug so that you can help 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.
Please do not ask us to help you install software or learn how to use it--but do tell us how an installation script fails or where documentation is unclear.
When choosing a service provider, ask those you are considering how much they do to assist free software development, e.g., by contributing money to free software development or by writing free software improvements themselves for general use. By basing your decision partially on this factor, you can encourage those who profit from free software to contribute to its growth.
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 League is a grass-roots organization of professors, students, business people, programmers, users, & even software companies dedicated to bringing back the freedom to write programs. The League isn't opposed to the legal system that Congress intended--copyright on individual programs. The League aims to reverse 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 concerned with the issue of free software. The FSF supports the League because, like any software developer smaller than Microsoft, it is endangered by software patents and interface copyrights. 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 the League for more information:
League for Programming Freedom One Kendall Square - #143 P.O. Box 9171 Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Electronic-Mail:lpf@uunet.uu.netWorld Wide Web: `http://www.lpf.org/' FTP:ftp.uu.net:/doc/lpf
by Dean Anderson, President, League for Programming Freedom
Statement on Supreme Court Decision
The recent Supreme Court action in Lotus v. Borland represents a victory for Borland, the League, developers, and users. While we wish the Supreme Court was more specific and had provided a written opinion, the Supreme Court tie allows the First Circuit decision to stand as law for the First Circuit, and as an "authoritative reference" for other Circuits. Essentially, the action means that one cannot own the user interface to programs.
This action is a win for users because their investment in learning a user interface can be preserved when they change vendors. It will be more difficult to create software monopolies based on claiming an exclusive right to a user interface. This decision will promote competition in the software industry as software companies will now compete to provide better and cheaper software which speaks the languages that users already know.
The League can now focus its attention on the software patent problem. Software patents are now the major threat to software developers, and to users and the general public as prices are driven up by legal and licensing costs. Software innovations which would improve our quality of life may be blocked by patent disputes and licensing quagmires. As people become more dependent on computer networks and software, the software patent issue will become more critical.
Tell a Friend about the LPF
The user interface copyright battle was largely fought in the courtroom, and that involved some key moments of focus and coordination. But since we will probably be battling in Congress over software patents, our approach will have to be somewhat different. Therefore, it is very important to get more members. Membership is what will get us the most clout with Congress. In the next year, we will need to gear up to promote our ideas more widely, both inside & outside of the software world. Your help & support is very important to the success of this effort, so encourage everyone you know to join the LPF!
Keep writing letters! Write the LPF, your representatives, newspapers,
journals, and others. Be sure to send us copies of the articles you wrote, and
the publications to which they were sent.
See our Web page at `http://www.lpf.org/' for more info on how to
help the LPF (send suggestions to webmasters@lpf.org).
GNU is going international! Our Translation Project gets users, translators, and maintainers together, so GNU will gradually speak many native languages.
To complete the GNU Translation Project, we need many people who like their own language and write it well, and who are also able to synergize with other translators speaking the same language as part of "translation teams".
If you want to start a new team, or want more information on existing teams
or other aspects of this project, write
gnu-translation@gnu.ai.mit.edu. Also see section GNU Software,
for information about gettext, the tool the GNU Translation
Project uses to help translators and programmers.
Mieko (h-mieko@sra.co.jp) and Nobuyuki Hikichi
(hikichi@sra.co.jp) continue to volunteer for the GNU Project
in Japan. They translate each issue of this Bulletin into Japanese and
distribute it widely, along with their translation of Version 2 of the GNU
General Public License. This translation of the GPL is authorized by the
FSF and is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.sra.co.jp in
`/pub/gnu/local-fix/GPL2-j'. They are working on a formal
translation of the GNU Library General Public License. They also solicit
donations and offer GNU software consulting.
nepoch (the Japanese version of Epoch) & MULE are available and widely
used in Japan. MULE (the MULtilingual Enhancement of GNU Emacs) can handle
many character sets at once. Its features are being merged into the
principal version of Emacs. See section GNU Software, for more details on MULE.
The FSF does not distribute nepoch, but MULE is available on the
section July 1996 Source Code CD-ROMs.
FTP it from sh.wide.ad.jp in `/JAPAN/mule', or
etlport.etl.go.jp in `/pub/mule'.
An anonymous user in Japan has redistributed GNU material that was left over from an FSF Tokyo seminar. He bought these items for reader presents in magazines of Gijitsu Hyouron-Sha, a publishing company.
The Village Center, Inc. prints a Japanese translation (ISBN 4-938704-02-1) of the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual and puts the Texinfo source on various bulletin boards. They also publish Nobuyuki & Mieko's Think GNU (ISBN 4-938704-10-2); this may be the first non-FSF copylefted publication in Japan. They also redistribute GNU CD-ROMs at this bookstore:
Shosen Grande 1-3-2 Kanda Jinbo-cho, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101, Japan Telephone: 03-3295-0011
Part of Village Center's profits are donated to the FSF. Their address is:
Village Center, Inc. 3-2 Kanda Jinbo-cho, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101, Japan Telephone: 03-3221-3520 URL: http://www.villagecenter.co.jp/ URL: http://www.villagecenter.co.jp/gnu.html for GNU products info handling by Village Center
Addison-Wesley Publishers Japan Ltd. has printed Japanese translations of the GNU Make Manual (ISBN 4-7952-9627-X) and the GAWK Manual (ISBN 4-7952-9672-8). Their address is:
Addison-Wesley Publishers Japan Ltd. Nichibou Bldg. 2F 1-2-2 Sarugaku-cho, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101, Japan Telephone: 03-3291-4581
There is a mailing list in Japan to discuss both hardware & software which
is under the GNU General Public License. It provides information about
making your own computer system. The main language of the list is
Japanese. If you are interested in getting information or having
discussions in English, ask mka@apricot.juice.or.jp or
ishiz@muraoka.info.waseda.ac.jp.
Many groups in Japan now distribute GNU software. They include JUG, a PC user group; ASCII, a periodical and book publisher; the Fujitsu FM Towns users group; and SRA's special GNU users' support group, Wingnut, who also purchased the first Deluxe Distribution package in Japan (also see section Help from Free Software Companies). (Since then, there have been several other purchases of Deluxe Distribution packages in Japan.)
It is easy to place an order directly with the FSF from Japan, thus funding
new software. To get an FSF Order Form written in Japanese, ask
japan-fsf-orders@prep.ai.mit.edu.
We encourage you to buy our software CDs:
for example, 140 CD-ROM orders at the
corporate rate allow the FSF to hire a programmer for a year to write more
free software.
Many programs in the field of parallel processing and knowledge processing were released to the public under the name of "ICOT Free Software (IFS)" in the Fifth Generation Computer Systems project. IFS was an 11-year Japanese project started in 1982 and FGCS was its 2-year follow-on project.
As of the end of March 1996, over 3,900 persons have accessed the ICOT Web page, and almost 21,000 files have been transferred since the first release in 1992. As ICOT was wound up in June, 1995, maintenance and further development of IFS was transferred to the Japan Information Processing Development Center (JIPDEC). JIPDEC established the Research Institute for Advanced Information Technology (AITEC). AITEC not only maintains, develops, and distributes IFS, but also develops parallel knowledge processing software in collaboration with several Japanese universities. Newly developed software will be released to the public with conditions similar to those of IFS.
For now, the domain name will remain icot.or.jp. For more
information, please see URL `http://www.icot.or.jp/'.
Information about the current status of released GNU programs can be found in section GNU Software. Here is some news of future plans.
locale
& localedef programs, & catalogs for displaying program messages in
languages other than English. (Ulrich presented a paper on his
internationalization work at the section First Free Software Conference; to order a copy of the Proceedings, see the FSF
Order Form, in the centerfold).
The library now builds as a shared library for systems that use the ELF
object file format. Included is the run-time loader (ld.so) which
sets up the shared libraries when a program runs; it works now with the
Hurd & Linux kernels, and is easy to port to other ELF systems such as SVR4
& Solaris 2.
office@gnustep.org. Check `http://www.gnustep.org/'
for more info.
recode (For current status, see section GNU Software)
The next recode release should give more flexible control over
encodings of charsets, offer MIME conversions, & handle ISO-10646
(Unicode). It will install a library & support files to help work towards
internationalizing GNU.
Also being developed are a POSIX.1 interface, an SCSH-like library, a module system, a Tk interface, & a byte-code interpreter; support for Emacs Lisp & a more C-like language is coming.
ptx (For current status, see section GNU Software)
The next release of ptx should offer contextualized support for SGML
texts as the first step towards a major overhaul for that package.
schelter@math.utexas.edu.
gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu.
f2c & GCC, see section GNU Software)
The GNU Fortran (g77) front end is stable, but more work is needed
to bring its overall packaging, feature set, and performance up to the
levels the Fortran community expects. Tasks to be done include: improving
documentation and diagnostics; speeding up compilation, especially for
large, densely initialized data tables; completing existing support for
INTEGER*2, INTEGER*8, and similar features; allowing
intrinsics in PARAMETER statements; and providing debug information
on COMMON and EQUIVALENCE variables. We don't know when
these things will be done, but hope some will be finished in the coming
months. You can speed progress by working on them or by offering funding.
A mailing list exists for announcements about g77. To subscribe,
ask info-gnu-fortran-request@prep.ai.mit.edu. To contact the
developer of g77 or get current status, write or finger
fortran@gnu.ai.mit.edu.
dictionary@gnu.ai.mit.edu or contact the FSF.
All our software is available via FTP; see section How to Get GNU Software. We also offer section CD-ROMs, and printed section GNU Documentation, which includes manuals and reference cards. In the articles describing the contents of each medium, the version number listed after each program name was current when we published this Bulletin. When you order a newer CD-ROM, some of the programs may be newer and therefore the version number higher. See the see section Free Software Foundation Order Form, for ordering information.
Some of the contents of our FTP distributions are compressed. We
have software on our FTP sites to uncompress these files. Due to
patent troubles with compress, we use another compression program,
gzip. (Such prohibitions on software development are fought by the
League for Programming Freedom; see section What Is the LPF?, for details.)
You may need to build GNU make before you build our other software.
Some vendors
supply no make utility at all and some native make programs
lack the VPATH feature essential for using the GNU configure system
to its full extent. The GNU make sources have a shell script to
build make itself on such systems.
We welcome all bug reports and enhancements sent to the appropriate electronic mailing list (see section Free Software Support).
We are using Autoconf, a uniform scheme for configuring GNU software packages in order to compile them (see "Autoconf" and "Automake" below, in this article). The goal is to have all GNU software support the same alternatives for naming machine and system types.
Ultimately, it will be possible to configure and build the entire system all at once, eliminating the need to configure each individual package separately.
You can also specify both the host and target system to build cross-compilation tools. Most GNU programs now use Autoconf-generated configure scripts.
For future programs and features, see section Forthcoming GNUs.
Key to cross reference:
BinCD December 1995 Binaries CD-ROM SrcCD December 1995 Source CD-ROMs
[FSFman] shows that we sell a manual for that package. [FSFrc] shows we sell a reference card for that package. To order them, see the see section Free Software Foundation Order Form. See section GNU Documentation, for more information on the manuals. Source code for each manual or reference card is included with each package.
acm (SrcCD)
acm is a LAN-oriented, multiplayer, aerial combat simulation that
runs under the X Window System. Players engage in air to air combat
against one another using heat seeking missiles and cannons.
We are working on a more accurate simulation of real airplane flight
characteristics.
m4 macro calls. Autoconf
requires GNU m4 to operate, but the resulting configure scripts it
generates do not.
sh and offers many extensions found in csh and
ksh. BASH has job control, csh-style command history,
command-line editing (with Emacs and vi modes built-in), and the
ability to rebind keys via the readline library. BASH conforms to the
POSIX 1003.2-1992 standard.
bc (SrcCD)
bc is an interactive algebraic language with arbitrary precision
numbers. GNU bc follows the POSIX 1003.2-1992
standard with several extensions, including multi-character variable names,
an else statement, and full Boolean expressions.
The RPN calculator dc is now distributed as part of the same
package, but GNU bc is not implemented as a dc preprocessor.
ld or GDB) to support many
different formats in a clean way. BFD provides a portable interface, so
that only BFD needs to know the details of a particular format. One result
is that all programs using BFD will support formats such as a.out, COFF,
and ELF. BFD comes with Texinfo source for a manual (not yet
published on paper).
At present, BFD is not distributed separately; it is included with packages that use it.
ar,
c++filt,
demangle,
gas,
gprof,
ld,
nlmconv,
nm,
objcopy,
objdump,
ranlib,
size,
strings,
&
strip.
Binutils version 2 uses the BFD library. The GNU assembler, gas,
supports the a29k, Alpha, H8/300, H8/500, HP-PA, i386, i960, m68k, m88k, MIPS,
NS32K, SH, SPARC, Tahoe, Vax, and Z8000 CPUs, and attempts to be compatible
with many other assemblers for Unix and embedded systems. It can produce
mixed C and assembly listings, and includes a macro facility similar to
that in some other assemblers. GNU's linker, ld, emits source-line
numbered error messages for multiply-defined symbols and undefined
references, and interprets a superset of AT&T's Linker Command Language,
which gives control over where segments are placed in memory.
nlmconv converts object files into Novell NetWare Loadable Modules.
objdump can disassemble code for most of the CPUs listed above, and
can display other data (e.g., symbols and relocations) from any file format
read by BFD.
yacc. Texinfo source for the Bison Manual
and reference card are included; see section GNU Documentation.
A recent policy change allows non-free programs to use Bison-generated parsers.
malloc
which wastes less memory than the old GNU version. The GNU
regular-expression functions (regex and rx) now nearly
conform to the POSIX 1003.2 standard.
GNU stdio lets you define new kinds of streams, just by writing a
few C functions. The fmemopen function uses this to open a
stream on a string, which can grow as necessary. You can define your
own printf formats to use a C function you have written. For
example, you can safely use format strings from user input to implement
a printf-like function for another programming language.
Extended getopt functions are already used to parse options,
including long options, in many GNU utilities.
Texinfo source for the GNU C Library Reference Manual is
included (see section GNU Documentation).
It runs on Sun-3 (SunOS 4.1), Sun-4 (SunOS 4.1 or Solaris 2), HP
9000/300 (4.3BSD), SONY News 800 (NewsOS 3 or 4), MIPS DECstation (Ultrix
4), DEC Alpha (OSF/1), i386/i486/Pentium (GNU/Hurd, GNU/Linux, System V,
SVR4, BSD, SCO 3.2, & SCO ODT 2.0),
Sequent Symmetry i386 (Dynix 3), & SGI (Irix 4).
The distribution also includes the libstdc++ library. This implements library facilities defined by the forthcoming ANSI/ISO C++ standard, including strings, the iostream library, and a port of the Standard Template Library.
gnuplot, & comes with source for a manual & reference card
(see section GNU Documentation).
cfengine (SrcCD)
cfengine is used to maintain site-wide configuration of a
heterogeneous Unix network using a simple high level language. Its
appearance is similar to rdist, but allows many more operations
to be performed automatically.
See Mark Burgess, "A Site Configuration Engine", Computing
Systems, Vol. 8, No. 3 (ask office@usenix.org how to
get a copy).
xboard's
spiffy X Window interface.
Recent improvements include fixes to the game analyzer, book, & hash table; smartening up draw & mate; improved thinking on opponent's time; Autoconf installation; a makefile for Windows NT compilation; forward pruning; unlimited quiescence captures; improved evaluation; improved null & time control logic; & repetition-detection.
Stuart Cracraft started GNU Chess. Improvements & rewrites are from John Stanback, Cha Kong Sian, Mike McGann, et al.
Send bugs to bug-gnu-chess@prep.ai.mit.edu &
general comments to info-gnu-chess@prep.ai.mit.edu.
GCL compiles to C & then uses the native optimizing C compiler (e.g., GCC). A function with a fixed number of args & one value turns into a C function of the same number of args, returning one value--so GCL is maximally efficient on such calls. Its conservative garbage collector gives great freedom to the C compiler to put Lisp values in registers. It has a source level Lisp debugger for interpreted code & displays source code in an Emacs window. Its profiler (based on the C profiling tools) counts function calls & the time spent in each function.
There is now a built-in interface to the Tk widget system. It runs in a separate process, so users may monitor progress on Lisp computations or interact with running computations via a windowing interface.
There is also an Xlib interface via C (xgcl-2). CLX runs with GCL, as does PCL (see "PCL" later in this article).
GCL version 2.2 is released under the GNU Library General Public License.
cpio (SrcCD)
cpio is an archive program with all the features of SVR4
cpio, including support for the final POSIX 1003.1 ustar
standard. mt, a program to position magnetic tapes, is included with
cpio.
make and GNATS,
respectively.
DejaGnu comes with expect, which runs scripts to conduct dialogs
with programs.
diff compares files showing line-by-line changes in several
flexible formats. It is much faster than traditional Unix versions. The
Diffutils package contains diff, diff3, sdiff, &
cmp.
Recent improvements include more consistent handling of character sets and
a new diff option to do all input/output in binary; this is useful
on some non-POSIX hosts. Plans for the Diffutils package include support
for internationalization (e.g., error messages in Chinese) and for some
non-Unix PC environments.
flex, & Binutils. Full source code is provided.
It needs at least 5MB of hard disk space to install & 512K
of RAM to use.
It supports SVGA (up to 1024x768),
XMS & VDISK memory allocation,
himem.sys,
VCPI (e.g., QEMM, DESQview, & 386MAX), &
DPMI (e.g., Windows 3.x, OS/2, QEMM, & QDPMI).
DJGPP Version 2 was released in Feb 1996, & needs a DPMI
environment; a free DPMI server is included.
FTP from `ftp.simtel.net' in `/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/' (or another SimTel mirror site).
Ask listserv@delorie.com,
to join a DJGPP users mailing list.
dld (SrcCD)
dld is a dynamic linker written by W. Wilson Ho. Linking your
program with the dld library allows you to dynamically load object
files into the running binary. dld supports a.out object types on
the following platforms: Convex C-Series (BSD), i386/i486/Pentium (Linux),
Sequent Symmetry i386 (Dynix 3), Sun-3 (SunOS 3 & 4), Sun-4 (SunOS 4), &
VAX (Ultrix).
doschk (SrcCD)
This program is a utility to help software developers ensure
that their source file names are distinguishable on System V platforms with
14-character filenames and on MS-DOS systems with 8+3 character filenames.
ecc (SrcCD)
ecc is a Reed-Solomon error correction checking library and sample
program, which can correct three byte errors in a block of 255 bytes and
detect more severe errors. Contact fclim@acm.org for more
information.
ed (SrcCD)
ed is the standard text editor.
It is line-oriented and can be used interactively or in scripts.
archive.cis.ohio-state.edu in
`/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive'.
es (SrcCD)
es is an extensible shell (based on rc) with first-class
functions, lexical scope, exceptions, and rich return values (i.e.,
functions can return values other than just numbers). es's
extensibility comes from the ability to modify and extend the shell's
built-in services, such as path searching and redirection. Like rc,
it is great for both interactive use and scripting, particularly since
its quoting rules are much less baroque than the C and Bourne shells.
enscript (SrcCD)
enscript is an upwardly-compatible replacement for the Adobe
enscript program. It formats ASCII files (outputting in Postscript)
and stores generated output to a file or sends it directly to the printer.
f2c (SrcCD)
f2c converts Fortran-77 source into C or C++, which can be
compiled with GCC or G++. Get bug fixes by FTP from site
netlib.bell-labs.com or by email from
netlib@netlib.bell-labs.com.
For a summary, see the file `/netlib/f2c/readme.Z'.
Also see the Fortran items later in this article, and in
section Forthcoming GNUs.
ffcall (SrcCD)
ffcall is a C library for implementing foreign function calls in
embedded interpreters by Bill Triggs and Bruno Haible. It allows C
functions with arbitrary argument lists and return types to be called
or emulated (callbacks).
chgrp,
chmod,
chown,
cp,
dd,
df,
dir,
dircolors,
du,
install,
ln,
ls,
mkdir,
mkfifo,
mknod,
mv,
rm,
rmdir,
sync,
touch,
&
vdir.
find is frequently used both interactively and in shell scripts to
find files which match certain criteria and perform arbitrary operations on
them. Also included are locate, which scans a database for file
names that match a pattern, and xargs, which applies a command to a
list of files.
flex (BinCD, SrcCD) [FSFman, FSFrc]
flex is a replacement for the lex scanner generator.
flex was written by Vern Paxson of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
and generates far more efficient scanners than lex does.
Sources for the Flex Manual and reference card are included
(see section GNU Documentation).
g77) Also see section Forthcoming GNUs (SrcCD)
GNU Fortran (g77), developed by Craig Burley, is available for
public beta testing on the Internet. For now, g77 produces code
that is mostly object-compatible with f2c & uses the same
run-time library (libf2c).
bpltobzr,
bzrto,
charspace,
fontconvert,
gsrenderfont,
imageto,
imgrotate,
limn,
&
xbfe.
awk. It also provides several useful extensions not found in other
awk implementations. Texinfo source for the The GNU Awk
User's Guide comes with the software (see section GNU Documentation).
gcal (SrcCD)
gcal is a program for printing calendars. It displays different
styled calendar sheets, eternal holiday lists, and fixed date warning
lists.
object, but see "GNUstep" in
section Forthcoming GNUs).
As much as possible,
G++ is kept compatible with the evolving draft ANSI standard, but not
with cfront (AT&T's compiler), which has been diverging from ANSI.
GCC is a fairly portable optimizing compiler which performs automatic register
allocation, common sub-expression elimination (CSE) (including a certain
amount of CSE between basic blocks -- though not all the supported machine
descriptions provide for scheduling or delay slots), invariant code motion
from loops, induction variable optimizations, constant propagation, copy
propagation, delayed popping of function call arguments, tail recursion
elimination, integration of inline functions & frame pointer elimination,
instruction scheduling, loop unrolling, filling of delay slots, leaf function
optimization, optimized multiplication by constants, the ability to assign
attributes to instructions, & many local optimizations automatically deduced
from the machine description.
GCC can open-code most arithmetic on 64-bit values (type long long
int). It supports extended floating point (type long double) on
the 68k; other machines will follow. GCC supports full ANSI C, traditional
C, & GNU C extensions (including: nested functions support, nonlocal gotos,
& taking the address of a label).
GCC can generate a.out, COFF, ELF, & OSF-Rose files when used with a
suitable assembler. It can produce debugging information in these
formats: BSD stabs, COFF, ECOFF, ECOFF with stabs, & DWARF.
GCC generates code for many CPUs, including the
a29k,
Alpha,
ARM,
AT&T,
DSP1610,
Clipper,
Convex cN,
Elxsi,
Fujitsu Gmicro,
i370,
i860,
i960,
MIL-STD-1750a,
MIPS,
ns32k,
PDP-11,
Pyramid,
ROMP,
RS/6000,
SH,
SPUR,
Tahoe,
VAX,
&
we32k.
Position-independent code is generated for the
Clipper,
Hitachi H8/300,
HP--PA (1.0 & 1.1),
i386/i486/Pentium,
m68k,
m88k,
SPARC,
&
SPARClite.
Operating systems supported include:
GNU/Hurd,
GNU/Linux,
ACIS,
AIX,
AOS,
BSD,
Clix,
Concentrix,
Ctix,
DG/UX,
Dynix,
FreeBSD,
Genix,
HP-UX,
Irix,
ISC,
Luna,
LynxOS,
Minix,
NetBSD,
NewsOS,
NeXTStep,
OS/2,
OSF,
OSF-Rose,
RISCOS,
SCO,
Solaris 2,
SunOS 4,
System/370,
SysV,
Ultrix,
Unos,
VMS,
&
Windows/NT.
Using the configuration scheme for GCC, building a cross-compiler is as
easy as building a native compiler.
Version 1 of GCC, G++, & libg++ are no longer maintained.
Texinfo source for the Using and Porting GNU CC manual
is included with GCC (see section GNU Documentation).
gdbtk (FTP it from ftp.cygnus.com in directory
`/pub/gdb'); and xxgdb (FTP it from ftp.x.org in
directory `/contrib/utilities').
Executable files and symbol tables are read via the BFD library, which
allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs with multiple object file
formats (e.g., a.out, COFF, ELF). Other features include a rich command
language, remote debugging over serial lines or TCP/IP, and watchpoints
(breakpoints triggered when the value of an expression changes).
GDB uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library which (so far)
has simulators for the
ARM,
Hitachi H8/300,
Hitachi H8/500,
Hitachi Super-H,
PowerPC,
WDC 65816,
&
Zilog Z8001/2.
GDB can perform cross-debugging. To say that GDB targets a platform
means it can perform native or cross-debugging for it. To say that GDB can
host a given platform means that it can be built on it, but cannot
necessarily debug native programs.
GDB can:
gdbm (SrcCD)
gdbm is the GNU replacement for the traditional dbm and
ndbm libraries. It implements a database using quick lookup by
hashing. gdbm does not ordinarily make sparse files (unlike its
Unix and BSD counterparts).
gettext Also see section Help the GNU Translation Project (SrcCD)
The GNU gettext tool set has everything maintainers need to
internationalize a package's user messages.
Once a package has been internationalized, gettext's many tools help
translators localize messages to their native language and automate
handling the translation files.
geomview (SrcCD)
geomview is an interactive geometry viewing program. It allows
multiple independently controllable objects and cameras.
geomview provides interactive control for motion, appearances
(including lighting, shading, and materials), picking on an object, edge
or vertex level, and snapshots in SGI image file or Renderman RIB format.
Adding or deleting objects is provided through direct mouse
manipulation, control panels, and keyboard shortcuts. External programs
can drive desired aspects of the viewer (such as continually loading
changing geometry or controlling the motion of certain objects) while
allowing interactive control of everything else.
The current version of GNU Ghostscript is 3.33. This version includes nearly a full Postscript Level 2 interpreter and also a PDF 1.0 interpreter. Significant new features include: support for anti-aliased characters; the ability to scan a directory and register all the fonts in it; support for Type 0 (Japanese / Chinese / Korean) fonts; and the ability to compile all the external initialization files into the executable. This version can also run as a 32-bit MS Windows application. Thanks to the generosity of URW++ (Hamburg, Germany), the low-quality bitmap-derived fonts distributed with older versions have been replaced with commercial-quality, hinted outline fonts. See section GNUs Flashes. Ghostscript executes commands in the Postscript language by writing directly to a printer, drawing on an X window, or writing to files for printing later or manipulating with other graphics programs.
Ghostscript includes a C-callable graphics library (for client programs that do not want to deal with the Postscript language). It also supports i386/i486/Pentiums running DOS with EGA, VGA or SuperVGA graphics (but please do not ask the FSF staff any questions about this; we do not use DOS).
ghostview@cs.wisc.edu, created Ghostview, a
previewer for multi-page files with an X Window interface. Ghostview &
Ghostscript work together; Ghostview creates a viewing window & Ghostscript
draws in it.
gmp (SrcCD)
GNU mp is a library for arithmetic on arbitrary precision integers,
rational numbers, and floating-point numbers. It has a rich set of
functions with a regular interface.
A major new release, version 2.0, is now out. Compared to previous versions, it is much faster, & contains lots of new functions. The main new feature is support for arbitrary precision floating-point numbers.
cs.nyu.edu in `/pub/gnat'.
SGI and Digital have chosen GNU Ada as the Ada compiler for certain
systems. News about GNAT is posted to the USENET newsgroup
comp.lang.ada.
gnussl) (SrcCD)
GNUMATH is a library (gnussl) designed to simplify scientific
programming. Its focus is on problems that can be solved by a
straight-forward application of numerical, linear algebra. It also handles
plotting. GNUMATH is in beta release; it is expected to grow more
versatile and offer a wider scope in time.
gnuplot (SrcCD)
gnuplot is an interactive program for plotting mathematical
expressions and data. It plots both curves (2 dimensions) & surfaces (3
dimensions). It was neither written nor named for the GNU
Project; the name is a coincidence. Various GNU programs use
gnuplot.
gnuserv (SrcCD)
gnuserv is an enhanced version of Emacs' emacsclient
program. It lets the user direct a running Emacs to edit files or
evaluate arbitrary Emacs Lisp constructs from another process.
gperf (SrcCD)
gperf generates perfect hash tables.
The C version is in package cperf.
The C++ version is in libg++.
Both produce hash functions in either C or C++.
spline interpolation program; examples
of shell scripts using graph and plot; a statistics
toolkit; and output in TekniCAD TDA and ln03 file formats. Email bugs or
queries to Rich Murphey, Rich@lamprey.utmb.edu.
grep, egrep, and fgrep, which find
lines that match entered patterns. They are much faster than the
traditional Unix versions.
troff, &
includes:
eqn,
nroff,
pic,
refer,
tbl,
troff;
the
man,
ms,
&
mm macros;
& drivers for Postscript, TeX dvi format, the LaserJet 4 series
of printers, and typewriter-like devices. Groff's mm macro package
is almost compatible with the DWB mm macros with several extensions.
Also included is a modified version of the Berkeley me macros and an
enhanced version of the X11 xditview previewer. Written in C++,
these programs can be compiled with GNU C++ Version 2.7.2 or later.
Groff users are encouraged to contribute enhancements. Most needed
are complete Texinfo documentation, a grap emulation (a pic
preprocessor for typesetting graphs), a page-makeup postprocessor similar
to pm (see Computing Systems, Vol. 2, No. 2; ask
office@usenix.org how to get a copy), and an ASCII
output class for pic to integrate pic with
Texinfo. Questions and bug reports from users who have read the
documentation provided with Groff can be sent to
bug-groff@prep.ai.mit.edu.
gzip (SrcCD)
gzip can expand LZW-compressed files but uses another, unpatented
algorithm for compression which generally produces better results. It also
expands files compressed with System V's pack program.
hello (SrcCD)
The GNU hello program produces a familiar, friendly greeting. It
allows non-programmers to use a classic computer science tool which would
otherwise be unavailable to them. Because it is protected by the GNU
General Public License, users are free to share and change it.
hello is also a good example of a program that meets the GNU coding
standards. Like any truly useful program, hello contains a built-in
mail reader.
hp2xx (SrcCD)
GNU hp2xx reads HP-GL files, decomposes all drawing commands into
elementary vectors, and converts them into a variety of vector and raster
output formats. It is also an HP-GL previewer. Currently supported vector
formats include encapsulated Postscript, Uniplex RGIP, Metafont, various
special TeX-related formats, and simplified HP-GL (line drawing only)
for imports. Raster formats supported include IMG, PBM, PCX, & HP-PCL
(including Deskjet & DJ5xxC support). Previewers work under X11 (Unix),
OS/2 (PM & full screen), & MS-DOS (SVGA, VGA, & HGC).
Details are available on the World Wide Web at: `http://www.vix.com/hylafax/'.
indent (SrcCD)
GNU indent formats C source code into the GNU indentation style. It
also has options to output BSD, K&R, or your own special style. GNU
indent is more robust & provides more functionality than other
such programs, including handling C++ comments. It runs on a number of
systems, including DOS & VMS.
The next version will also format C++ source code.
(mjt@octavia.anu.edu.au). See JACAL's documentation at
`http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/JACAL.html'.
The FSF is not distributing JACAL on any physical media. You can FTP it or get it from the Web site listed above.
less (SrcCD)
less is a display paginator similar to more and pg, but
with various features (such as the ability to scroll backwards) that most
pagers lack.
m4 (SrcCD)
GNU m4 is an implementation of the traditional Unix macro processor.
It is mostly SVR4 compatible, although it has some extensions (e.g.,
handling more than 9 positional parameters to macros). m4 also has
built-in functions for including files, running shell commands, doing
arithmetic, etc.
make See section Forthcoming GNUs (BinCD, SrcCD) [FSFman]
GNU make supports POSIX 1003.2 and has all but a few obscure
features of the BSD and System V versions of make, and runs on
MS-DOS, AmigaDOS, VMS, & Windows NT or 95, as well as all
Unix-compatible systems. GNU extensions include long options, parallel
compilation, flexible implicit pattern rules, conditional execution, &
powerful text manipulation functions. Source for the Make
Manual comes with the program (see section GNU Documentation).
mc) (SrcCD)
The Midnight Commander is a user friendly & colorful Unix file manager
& shell, useful to novice & guru alike. It has a built-in virtual file
system that manipulates files inside tar files or files
on remote machines using the FTP protocol. This mechanism is extendable
with external Unix programs.
mkisofs (SrcCD)
mkisofs is a pre-mastering program to generate an ISO 9660 file system.
It takes a snapshot of a directory tree, and makes a binary
image which corresponds to an ISO 9660 file system when written to a
block device.
It can also generate the System Use Sharing Protocol
records of the Rock Ridge Interchange Protocol
(used to further describe the files in an ISO 9660 file system to a Unix
host; it provides information such as longer filenames, uid/gid,
permissions, and device nodes).
The mkisofs program is frequently used with cdwrite.
cdwrite works by taking the image that mkisofs generates and
driving a cdwriter to actually burn the disk. cdwrite works under
Linux, and supports popular cdwriters. Older versions of cdwrite
were included with older versions of mkisofs; check
sunsite.unc.edu & get
/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/cdwrite-2.0.tar.gz for the
latest version.
mtools (SrcCD)
mtools is a set of public domain programs to allow Unix systems to
read, write, and manipulate files on an MS-DOS file system (usually a
diskette).
ncurses (SrcCD)
ncurses is an implementation of the Unix curses library for
developing screen-based programs that are terminal independent.
nvi (SrcCD)
nvi is a freely redistributable implementation of the
vi/ex Unix editor. It has almost all the functionality of
the original vi/ex, except "open" mode & the lisp
option. Enhancements include multiple buffers, command-line editing &
path completion, integrated Perl5 & Tcl scripting languages, Cscope
support & tag stacks, 8-bit data support, infinite file/line lengths,
infinite undo, message catalogs, incremental search, and extended regular
expressions. It uses Autoconf for configuration and runs on any Unix-like
system.
gstep-base.tar.gz,
libgnustep-base) has general-purpose, non-graphical Objective-C
objects written by Andrew McCallum & other volunteers. It includes
collection classes for maintaining groups of objects, I/O streams, coders
for formatting objects & C types to streams, ports for network packet
transmission, distributed objects (remote object messaging), string
classes, invocations, notifications, event loops, timers, exceptions,
pseudo-random number generators, & time handling facilities. It has
the base classes for the GNUstep project; over 80 of them have
already been written. Send queries & bugs to
mccallum@gnu.ai.mit.edu.
gnuplot.
Send queries & bugs to: bug-octave@bevo.che.wisc.edu.
Texinfo source is included for a 220+ page Octave manual, not yet published by the FSF.
p2c (SrcCD)
p2c is Dave Gillespie's Pascal-to-C translator. It inputs many
dialects (HP, ISO, Turbo, VAX, etc.) & generates readable,
maintainable, portable C.
patch (SrcCD)
patch is our version of Larry Wall's program to take diff's
output and apply those differences to an original file to generate the
modified version.
perl (SrcCD)
Larry Wall's perl combines the features & capabilities of C,
sed, awk, & sh, and provides interfaces to the Unix
system calls & many C library routines.
pine Also see section Some Bad News about Pine (SrcCD)
pine is a friendly menu-driven electronic mail manager and user
interface .
ptx Also see section Forthcoming GNUs (SrcCD)
GNU ptx is our version of the traditional permuted index
generator. It handles multiple input files at once, has TeX
compatible output, & outputs readable KWIC (KeyWords In Context)
indexes without using nroff.
It does not yet handle input files that do not fit in memory all at once.
rc (SrcCD)
rc is a shell that features a C-like syntax (much more so than
csh) and far cleaner quoting rules than the C or Bourne shells.
It's intended to be used interactively, but is also great for writing
scripts. It inspired the shell es.
diff, RCS can handle binary
files (8-bit data, executables, object files, etc).
RCS now conforms to GNU configuration standards & to POSIX 1003.1b-1993.
Also see the CVS item above.
recode Also see section Forthcoming GNUs (SrcCD)
GNU recode converts files between character sets and usages. When
exact transliterations are not possible, it may delete the offending
characters or fall back on approximations. This program recognizes or
outputs nearly 150 different character sets and is able to transliterate
files between almost any pair. Most RFC 1345 character sets are supported.
regex (SrcCD)
The GNU regular expression library supports POSIX.2, except for
internationalization features. It is included in many GNU programs which
do regular expression matching & is available separately. An alternate
regular expression package, rx, is faster than regex in most
cases & will replace regex over time.
rx (SrcCD)
Tom Lord has written rx, a new regular expression library which is
faster than the older GNU regex library. It is now being
distributed with sed and tar. rx will be used in the
next releases of m4 and ptx.
screen (SrcCD)
screen is a terminal multiplexer that runs several separate
"screens" (ttys) on a single character-based terminal. Each virtual
terminal emulates a DEC VT100 plus several ISO 2022 and ISO 6429 (ECMA 48,
ANSI X3.64) functions, including color. Arbitrary keyboard input
translation is also supported. screen sessions can be detached and
resumed later on a different terminal type. Output in detached sessions is
saved for later viewing.
sed (SrcCD)
sed is a stream-oriented version of ed. It comes with the
rx library.
shar makes so-called shell archives out of many files, preparing
them for transmission by electronic mail services; unshar helps
unpack these shell archives after reception. uuencode and
uudecode are POSIX compliant implementations of a pair of programs
which transform files into a format that can be safely transmitted across
a 7-bit ASCII link.
basename,
chroot,
date,
dirname,
echo,
env,
expr,
factor,
false,
groups,
hostname,
id,
logname,
nice,
nohup,
pathchk,
printenv,
printf,
pwd,
seq,
sleep,
stty,
su,
tee,
test,
true,
tty,
uname,
uptime,
users,
who,
whoami,
&
yes.
GNU Shogi is a variant of GNU Chess; it implements the same features & similar heuristics. As a new feature, sequences of partial board patterns can be introduced to help the program play toward specific opening patterns. It has both character and X display interfaces.
It is primarily supported by Matthias Mutz on behalf of the FSF.
sendmail. It uses a much simpler
configuration format than sendmail and is designed to be setup
with minimal effort.
tar (SrcCD)
GNU tar includes multi-volume support, the ability to archive sparse
files, compression/decompression, remote archives, and
special features that allow tar to be used for incremental and full
backups. GNU tar uses an early draft of the POSIX 1003.1
ustar format which is different from the final version. This
will be corrected in the future.
tput is a portable way for shell scripts to use special terminal
capabilities. tabs is a program to set hardware terminal tab
settings.
web2c
TeX package. Sources are available via anonymous FTP; retrieval
instructions are in `/pub/tex/unixtex.ftp' on ftp.cs.umb.edu.
If you receive any installation support from the University of Washington,
consider sending them a donation.
To order a full distribution written in tar on either a
1/4inch 4-track QIC-24 cartridge or a 4mm DAT cartridge, send
$210.00 to:
Pierre A. MacKay
Department of Classics
DH-10, Denny Hall 218
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
USA
Electronic-Mail: mackay@cs.washington.edu
Telephone: +1-206-543-2268
Please make checks payable to: `University of Washington'.
Do not specify any other payee. That causes accounting problems.
Checks must be in U.S. dollars, drawn on a U.S. bank.
Only prepaid orders can be handled.
Overseas sites: please add to the base cost $20.00 to ship via
air parcel post or $30.00 to ship via courier.
Please check with the above for current prices & formats.
makeinfo,
info,
texi2dvi,
texindex,
tex2patch,
&
fixfonts)
which generate both printed manuals & online hypertext documentation
(called "Info"), & can read online Info documents. Version 3 has both
Emacs Lisp & standalone programs written in C or shell script. Texinfo
mode for Emacs enables easy editing & updating of Texinfo files. Source
for the Texinfo Manual is included (see section GNU Documentation).
cat,
cksum,
comm,
csplit,
cut,
expand,
fmt,
fold,
head,
join,
md5sum,
nl,
od,
paste,
pr,
sort,
split,
sum,
tac,
tail,
tr,
unexpand,
uniq,
and
wc.
libtiff, is a library for manipulating Tagged
Image File Format files, a commonly used bitmap graphics format.
Many documented Forth libraries are available, e.g. top-down parsing, multi-threads, & object-oriented programming.
time (SrcCD)
time reports (usually from a shell) the user, system, & real time
used by a process. On some systems it also reports memory usage, page
faults, etc.
ucblogo (SrcCD)
ucblogo implements the classic teaching language, Logo.
f,
g (all window & packet sizes),
v,
G,
t,
e,
Zmodem,
&
two new bidirectional (i & j) protocols.
With a BSD sockets library, it can make TCP connections. With TLI
libraries, it can make TLI connections. Source is included for a manual
(not yet published by the FSF).
wdiff (SrcCD)
wdiff is a front-end to GNU diff. It compares two files,
finding the words deleted or added to the first to make the
second.