[geeks] [rescue] Ultra 5 OS

[Andrew Jones]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 09:58:15AM -0400, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> On Apr 28, 2010, at 4:41 PM, Andrew Jones <andrew at jones.ec> wrote:
> 
> >I'm still pretty sure Cygnus was the first firm to try to make Free  
> >software
> >the core of its business model
> 
> Cygnus did what UniPress did, take someone else's code and modify/ 
> support it, right? For example, Cygnus sold supported GNU software,  
> not their own, right? They didn't write new, unique programs  
> independent of other works and then offer them freely, did they? Their  
> work-products were not free (as in beer), were they?
> 
> Also, when tossing around the word 'free' in this context, please  
> specify 'as in beer', 'as in speech', or both...
> 
> I assume you mean 'both'.

I meant free-as-in-beard.  Free with a capital 'F.'

Yes, Cygnus sold support for GNU, but GNU software *was* Cygnus's software.
They aggressively hacked on GCC, and they wrote much of the code in today's
binutils.  Working on GNU software was their raison d'etre.