[twenty-years] Add the original GNOME announcement to Prehistory

From: Federico Mena Quintero <federico src gnome org>
To: commits-list gnome org
Cc:
Subject: [twenty-years] Add the original GNOME announcement to Prehistory
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2017 05:36:48 +0000 (UTC)
commit edc6f786d817611afaf0b5eedf99382a9126ed38
Author: Federico Mena Quintero <federico gnome org>
Date:   Fri Mar 17 23:12:57 2017 -0600

    Add the original GNOME announcement to Prehistory
    
    And add a bibliography

 book/Makefile       |   28 ++++++++--
 book/intro.tex      |    4 +-
 book/main.tex       |    7 ++-
 book/prehistory.tex |  144 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 book/references.bib |   43 +++++++++++++++
 notes.txt           |    4 +-
 6 files changed, 218 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)
---
diff --git a/book/Makefile b/book/Makefile
index f23add9..279f527 100644
--- a/book/Makefile
+++ b/book/Makefile
@@ -1,18 +1,34 @@
 SOURCES =                                      \
+       applications.tex                        \
+       desktop-shell.tex                       \
+       eazel.tex                               \
+       enemies.tex                             \
        glossary-entries.tex                    \
+       graphics.tex                            \
+       hardware.tex                            \
        historybit.tex                          \
        intro.tex                               \
-       main.tex
-#      references.bib
+       languages.tex                           \
+       main.tex                                \
+       other-subsystems.tex                    \
+       pants.tex                               \
+       prehistory.tex                          \
+       projects-faded.tex                      \
+       references.bib                          \
+       rhad-labs.tex                           \
+       swedish.tex                             \
+       text.tex                                \
+       ximian.tex                              \
+       yorba.tex
 
-# BIB_GENERATED = references_bibertool.bib
+BIB_GENERATED = references_bibertool.bib
 
 main.pdf: $(SOURCES) $(BIB_GENERATED)
        xelatex main
-#      biber main.bcf
+       biber main.bcf
        makeglossaries main
        makeindex main
        xelatex main
 
-#references_bibertool.bib: references.bib $(SOURCES)
-#      biber --tool references.bib
+references_bibertool.bib: references.bib $(SOURCES)
+       biber --tool references.bib
diff --git a/book/intro.tex b/book/intro.tex
index ba0cf43..545b551 100644
--- a/book/intro.tex
+++ b/book/intro.tex
@@ -2,8 +2,8 @@
 
 \chapter{Introduction}
 
-This book is an informal, subjective, incomplete, and yet fascinating
-history of the \GNOME\ project.
+This book is an informal, subjective, incomplete, but hopefully
+fascinating history of the \GNOME\ project.
 
 \GNOME\ is one of those old pieces of free software\footnote{``Free
   software'' with ``free as in freedom'', as in software that the GNU
diff --git a/book/main.tex b/book/main.tex
index d7d64bb..6d4ee03 100644
--- a/book/main.tex
+++ b/book/main.tex
@@ -7,18 +7,20 @@
 \usepackage{verbatim}
 %\usepackage{picinpar}
 \usepackage[colorlinks,linkcolor=blue]{hyperref} % References as links/URLs in the PDF
+\usepackage[usenames,svgnames]{xcolor}
 \usepackage{listings}
 \usepackage{libertine}
 \usepackage{mdframed}
 \usepackage{makeidx}
 \usepackage{glossaries}
 
-%\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
-%\addbibresource{references_bibertool.bib}
+\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
+\addbibresource{references_bibertool.bib}
 
 \defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text,Scale=MatchLowercase} % to % % support TeX conventions like ‘‘--
 
 \def\GNOME{{\sc gnome}}
+\def\KDE{{\sc kde}}
 
 \makeindex
 \makeglossaries
@@ -79,6 +81,7 @@
 \input{swedish.tex}
 \input{pants.tex}
 
+\printbibliography
 \printglossaries
 \printindex
 
diff --git a/book/prehistory.tex b/book/prehistory.tex
index 742f774..c0e5191 100644
--- a/book/prehistory.tex
+++ b/book/prehistory.tex
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 \chapter{Prehistory}
 
+% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open-source_software#Desktop_.281984-.29
+
 unam.mx, fciencias, nuclecu
 
 Debugging floats/alignment on Alpha and SPARC.
@@ -24,6 +26,146 @@ Miguel visits Microsoft, IE/Unix team
 
 Component model
 
-KDE appears, Qt non-free
+\KDE\ appears, Qt non-free
 
 GNOME starts
+
+\section{\GNOME's original announcement}
+
+One may think that the very first mail to be archived in {\tt gnome.org}'s mailing
+lists would be the original announcement for the \GNOME\ project
+itself.  But that is not so!  In fact, it is archived among the posts
+to {\tt gtk-list} --- what was then the development mailing list for
+GTK+.
+
+Here is the
+\href{https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-list/1997-August/msg00123.html}{original
+announcement for \GNOME} in its entirety, from August 15, 1997:
+
+\begin{lstlisting}[basicstyle=\footnotesize,
+    frame=single,
+    framerule=0pt,
+    backgroundcolor=\color{lightgray},
+    xleftmargin=0pt]
+From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel nuclecu unam mx>
+To: gtk-list redhat com, kde fiwi02 wiwi uni-tuebingen de,
+    guile cygnus com
+Subject: The GNOME Desktop project.
+Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 22:19:34 -0500
+
+
+                       The GNOME Desktop project
+                (GNU Network Object Model Environment)
+                http://bananoid.nuclecu.unam.mx/gnome
+
+
+* Goals
+
+We want to develop a free and complete set of user
+friendly applications and desktop tools, similar to CDE
+and KDE but based entirely on free software:
+
+- We want the applications to have a common look and
+  feel, and to share as many visual elements and UI
+  concepts as possible.
+
+- We want to use the GTK toolkit as our toolkit for
+  writing the applications.
+
+  The GTK toolkit (http://www.cs.umn.edu/~amundson/gtk
+  and http://levien.com/~slow/gtk/) is the toolkit
+  written by Peter Mattis, Spencer Kimball, Josh
+  MacDonald, for the GNU Image Manipulation Program
+  (GIMP) project (http://scam.xcf.berkeley.edu/~gimp).
+
+- We want to encourage people to contribute code and to
+  test the code, so that the software will compile out of
+  the box by using GNU's tools for automatic source
+  configuration.
+
+- We plan to export the GTK API through a procedural
+  database (which will in fact be an object database) to
+  allow easy integration with scripting languages and
+  modules written in other languages.
+
+- We plan to use GTK/Scheme bindings for coding small
+  utilities and applications.  When these bindings are more
+  mature, it should be possible to write complete
+  applications in Scheme.
+
+* Some common questions regarding the project
+
+Why don't you just use/contribute to KDE?
+
+  KDE is a nice project; they have good hackers working
+  on it and they have done a very good job.
+  Unfortunately, they selected the non-free Qt toolkit as
+  the foundation for the project, which poses legal
+  problems for those desiring to redistribute the
+  software.
+
+Why not write a free Qt replacement instead?
+
+  The KDE project -in its current form- has about 89,000
+  lines of code, on the other hand, the source code for
+  the Qt library has about 91,000 lines.
+
+  Qt also forces the programmer to write his code in C++
+  or Python.  Gtk can be used in C, Scheme, Python, C++,
+  Objective-C and Perl.
+
+  Also, we believe that KDE has some design problems
+  (they have lots of good ideas though) that we plan to
+  fix.
+
+Under what license does the GNOME fall?
+
+  As most GNU software, GNOME application code will be
+  released under the GNU GPL.  GNOME specific libraries
+  will be released under the terms of the GNU LGPL.
+
+Will you rewrite everything from scratch?
+
+  No.  We will try to reuse the existing code for GNU
+  programs as much as possible, while adhering to the
+  guidelines of the project.  Putting nice and consistent
+  user interfaces over all-time favorites will be one of
+  the projects.
+
+  We plan on reusing code from KDE as well.
+
+* Joining the GNOME mailing list:
+
+We have created a mailing list for people interested in
+discussing the development of this project.  To
+subscribe, use this command:
+
+   echo 'subscribe gnome' | mail majordomo nuclecu unam mx
+\end{lstlisting}
+
+Note some evidence of this being pretty old:
+
+\begin{itemize}
+
+\item{Miguel still had his {\tt nuclecu.unam.mx} address.}
+
+\item{{\tt gtk-list} was hosted at {\tt redhat.com}, not
+  {\tt gnome.org} as it is now.}
+
+\item{\KDE's mailing list was hosted at the University of
+  Tübingen.  Also, were we really trolling there with
+  this announcement for a competing project?  Did we get
+  any ``converts'' from there, or did we just generate
+  resentment?}
+
+\item{Our web site was at {\tt bananoid.nuclecu.unam.mx},
+  which is an awesome machine name.\footnote{Bananoid was
+    an old game for MS-DOS, a clone of Breakout.  Its
+    killer feature was that it used VGA 256 colors and
+    smooth scrolling, which was very rare back then.
+    Miguel had a knack for choosing funny hostnames.}}
+
+\end{itemize}
+
+This brings us to the official start of \GNOME and its
+history.
diff --git a/book/references.bib b/book/references.bib
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0015c02
--- /dev/null
+++ b/book/references.bib
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+@book{havoc-ggad,
+       author          = {Havoc Pennington},
+       title           = {GTK+/GNOME Application Development},
+       year            = {1999},
+       publisher       = {New Riders Publishing},
+       location        = {Indianapolis, Indiana, USA}
+}
+
+@book{mawarkus-togdg,
+       author          = {Matthias Warkus},
+       title           = {The Official GNOME 2 Developer's Guide},
+       year            = {2004},
+       publisher       = {No Starch Press},
+       location        = {San Francisco, California, USA}
+}
+
+@online{original-gnome-announcement,
+       author  = {Miguel de Icaza},
+       title   = {The GNOME Desktop Project, Original announcement},
+       year    = {1997},
+       url     = {https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-list/1997-August/msg00123.html}
+}
+
+@online{mpt-free-software-poor-usability,
+       author  = {Matthew Paul Thomas},
+       title   = {Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve it},
+       year    = {2008},
+       url     = 
{https://web.archive.org/web/20081218072126/http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/01/free-software-usability}
+}
+
+@online{mpt-free-software-usability-sucks,
+       author  = {Matthew Paul Thomas},
+       title   = {Why Free Software usability tends to suck},
+       year    = {2002},
+       url     = 
{https://web.archive.org/web/20081122141629/http://web.archive.org/web/20030201183139/http://mpt.phrasewise.com/discuss/msgReader\$173}
+}
+
+@online {havoc-free-software-ui,
+       author  = {Havoc Pennington},
+       title   = {Free Software UI},
+       year    = {2002},
+       url     = {http://ometer.com/free-software-ui.html}
+}
diff --git a/notes.txt b/notes.txt
index 7b78632..3db3499 100644
--- a/notes.txt
+++ b/notes.txt
@@ -109,6 +109,9 @@ heritage in an upcoming anniversary project, that might work
 
 * XeTeX:
 
+https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX
+http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/listings/listings.pdf
+
 ** Install package texlive-xetex
 ** Install package texlive-libertine - for nice fonts
 ** Install package texlive-mdframed - for multipage frames with background colors
@@ -117,4 +120,3 @@ heritage in an upcoming anniversary project, that might work
 ** Install package texlive-biber - Replacement for bibtex(1)
 
 ** Typesetting source code https://www.ctan.org/pkg/listings
-
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