NIL

Mike McDonald mikemac@titian.engr.sgi.com
Wed, 30 Apr 1997 18:39:47 -0700


>Subject: NIL
>To: lispos@math.gatech.edu (Lisp OS project)
>Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 03:13:15 +0200 (MET DST)
>From: Fare Rideau <rideau@ens.fr>
>
>Dear LispOS hackers,
>
>In his GNU (GNU's Not Unix) Manifesto,
>RMS explains that when he began his free software project,
>he had to choose between cloning Unix or cloning a Lisp Machine.
>He chose Unix, for various reasons of expediency,
>which we should respect, given the success of his project
>at promoting free software, and how useful it has proven:
>GNU includes all the tools that made free unices possible,
>as well as a great Lisp-based editor.

  Respect yes. Repeat, no.

>Now, I believe it's time for the complementary project to GNU to appear.
>In reference to its elder free software project, I think set of all
>LispOS related free software projects should be given the generic name NIL,
>which stands, of course, for ``NIL IS LISP''.
>Maybe it's time that we write the NIL Manifesto, in answer to GNU?

  Ah, sorry but the NIL name was taken years ago. It's a version of
Lisp that only ran on some forgotten machine. (Vaxes running VMS?
Something useful like that.)

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@engr.sgi.com