Subject: Re: ACL, CLISP and pathnames
From: Erik Naggum <cl@naggum.no>
Date: 1998/05/18
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3104444414713404@naggum.no>


* Rainer Joswig
| A discussion *style* like this doesn't do much good, though.

  well, there are good and there are bad ways to respond when people
  "defend" you.  I find it puzzling that you appear to like _his_ style.

| Franz did a ***great*** job providing the excellent ACL 4.3 for Linux.  I
| hope they are going to port ACL 5.0 to Linux.

  they already have.  take a look in ftp.franz.com/pub/linux/acl50beta/.
  both RedHat 4.X and RedHat 5.X are supported¹.  I'm running both 4.3 and
  5.0-beta on a RedHat 4.2 system right now.  no negative surprises so far,
  but several really positive ones, like the new printer and reader which
  implements the ANSI Common Lisp semantics correctly, not just the Franz
  Inc "case mode" semantics, on which I filed a non-conformance report over
  a year ago and had to fix with my own PRINT-OBJECT method on SYMBOL², the
  :LOCAL-HOST argument to MAKE-SOCKET that I had asked for so I could bind
  a socket on a single network interface (although still undocumented), and
  numerous other things I have wanted and asked for, not the least of which
  is improved ANSI Common Lisp conformance in numerous minor ways.

  the _only_ problem I have with the free Linux release is that the ability
  to get full support and be allowed to use this software in a commercial
  setting is buried under a tremendous amount of legalese that says
  INTERDIT, VERBOTEN and PROHIBITED every which way, when all you need to
  do is make a phone call or write some e-mail to initiate the process that
  produces the required "prior written consent".  I think it's wonderful
  that Franz Inc ships this Linux beta release for free, but I do wonder
  what the effect will be on those who see it as marketing with a STOP sign
  backdrop.  how many will read the license and understand that only if
  they _don't_ ask for (or get) permission to do cool stuff will it apply
  as is?  maybe it's just me who is still not used to the contract culture
  in the U.S., but it seems much less accessible than it actually is, and I
  should know: a client of mine is moving their production environment to
  Allegro CL for Linux this summer.

#:Erik
------
¹ officially only RedHat 4.0 and RedHat 5.0.
² src.naggum.no/lisp/symbol-printer.cl (http and ftp)
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