[geeks] [rescue] Ultra 5 OS

[Phil Stracchino]

On 04/29/10 09:58, 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?

Correct, Cygnus's business model was to provide fully supported custom
ports of the GNU binutils/compiler toolchain to any specified
architecture and environment.  (Plus there were a few Cygnus-originated
tools like Insight, the GUI gdb.  gdb, for the record, is one of those
tools that benefits IMMENSELY from a well-thought-out GUI.)


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.