Unix philosophy

[rbbb.rice%rand-relay at sri-unix.UUCP]

From:  David.Chase <rbbb.rice at rand-relay>

The free software aspect sounds fun, but the unbounded mutation of
systems worries me.  I would hope that some of my work would be useful
to other people (and other people's useful to me) -- variations in
operating systems can make this less likely.  Thus I am willing to put
up with a not-perfect-for-me environment because (a) the time I spend
doing personal tailoring is essentially wasted, unless my personal
tailoring is indeed my work (or it improves my productivity in some
amazing way) and (b) anything I do can be used by anyone else running
the standard system.

The temptation to tinker with your environment is powerful indeed; I
have installed and maintain local modifications in Gosling's emacs, so
I have sinned, I guess.  Some of my mlisp won't run on other people's
emacs, so it's only useful to a few people (I think I'll send the
modifications off to Unipress, for penance).  I expect that RMS is
capable of writing GNU and giving it away, but what then?  Is this
really progress?

drc