Computer Letter: Sharing software

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

ONE SMALL minority of users totally ignored by David Hewson's piece is the experts - those who converted from trainspotting because it was getting too fashionable. I am writing up a PhD thesis on an esoteric Electrical Engineering subject, using only public domain software. The operating system is BSD Unix - the real thing from Berkeley, the graphical interface X11 - the real thing from MIT. The editor is GNU Emacs from the Free Software Foundation and the print preparation program LaTeX from Donald Knuth.

Jens Tingleff

Imperial College, London

jensting@ic. ac. uk

Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Thank you for registering

Computer Letter: Sharing software

Bookmark popover

Thank you for registering