Shalom ha-Ashkenaz, 1998/06/18 CE
RE: FreeMUMPS and its source code files
Shalom!
Someone set out to purchase all MUMPS vendors. What is good for Terry may not be good for the traditional MUMPS community.
MUMPS is fun. MUMPS is OPEN. MUMPS puts YOU in control of affairs.
Somebody is monopolising MUMPS, is cache-ing MUMPS.
So we need a FreeMUMPS, i.e. something even Terry-Bill cannot buy!
Here are files of a preliminary version of FreeMUMPS.
I put them in the hands of MUG with the following guidelines:
-
The aim of the project is to make available FreeMUMPS to everybody (even private use for Terry shall be granted :-).
-
As long as there is no manual (preferably in the English language) available to the public and as long as there is an unresolved list of known problems, FreeMUMPS is NOT to be made available to the general public. Let lousy products be the privilege of MS-Bill.
-
MUG may forward FreeMUMPS at this stage to individuals or to non-profit organizations who volunteer to contribute to the project. When there is a manual (TeX or LaTeX recommended!, HTML is not bad either) and when a MUG task force declares FreeMUMPS free of known problems then FreeMUMPS is to be made available to the general public.
-
FreeMUMPS is not to be placed under the GNU General Public Licence. Anybody who wants to produce a proprietary product with parts of FreeMUMPS is free to do so: Either with FreeMUMPS as part of application programs or with FreeMUMPS as the basis of a new commercial MUMPS implementation. However, who passes FreeMUMPS or products based on it, must inform the recipient of the FreeMUMPS Copyright, and he has to provide the FreeMUMPS source codes without additional charges.
-
Everybody passing FreeMUMPS or products based on it should encourage the recipient to join in a MUMPS Users Group of her choice.
-
Current FreeMUMPS runs under LINUX and under SCO-UNIX. Minor modifications may be needed to make it compile & run under other Unixes. A Windows-98 or Windows-NT Version is desirable. char is "signed char". under SCO-UNIX you call it with "mumps.sco" under LINUX you call it with "mumps.linux" use mcc and mutil to compile FreeMUMPS and associated untilities.
Have much fun, get involved with FreeMUMPS, and do not forget to observe Sabbath Kaddish,
Yours,
Shalom ha-Ashkenaz