[tobinfricke]

> In late 1983, in an effort to bootstrap the GNU operating system, Richard Stallman asked Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the author of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (also known as the Free University Compiler Kit)

I see what you did there

edit: Oh but actually Richard Stallman is careful to clarify:

> Shortly before beginning the GNU project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for "free" is written with a V.)

[stoltzmann]

The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Tanenbaum was a professor there, giving classes on operating systems. So I'd say it should rather be called the VU Compiler Kit.

[skissane]

> The "free" in VUCK doesn't stand for free as in freedom, or even free as in beer. Free University is a weird translation of the name of a specific institution - the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

It isn’t a “weird translation” - “Free University” is a perfectly valid translation of Dutch “Vrije Universiteit”. You just have to understand the historical background, that the university was so named because it was free from control by State or Church, unlike other universities in the Netherlands at the time of its 19th century founding

[gumby]

My high school was a “free school” in the same sense of the term. Founded 1640 by royal charter.

[frutiger]

According to this seemingly exhaustive list (https://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2...), no royal charters were granted in 1640.

[gumby]

That's a pretty interesting list! A lot of interesting entries there, including a couple (e.g. Needlemakers) signed by Cromwell.

Given that it was issued by the privy counsel it is interesting that it has some notable omissions (though how comprehensive can the records be over such a long period, anyway?). I thought at first it might have been limited to charters in the current UK, but it does have the Massachusetts Company (1629), though not Virginia's charter (1606). Has the East and West India Companies, but not the College of William and Mary (1693) -- there are images of that one on the web, though not the signature.

My school was also in the Massachusetts colony, the somewhat pompous Roxbury Latin, 1643, charter 1645 (the unfortunate Charles I). It's been more than 40 years since I clapped eyes on its charter - astonishing they haven't put it online. My memory that it was 1640 was corrected by a bit of web searching.

Really these things are archaic silly relics, like monarchies themselves.

[skissane]

The page linking to the list – https://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/royal-charters/list-... – says:

> Please note that the attached list may not be exhaustive – please contact us if you believe any information is missing.

[skissane]

My guess: the royal Governor of an (at-the-time) British colony issued a charter in the name of the crown, and people in that colony called it a “royal charter” since it was issued in the King’s name, but while that kind of thing may pass for a “royal charter” in the colonies, in London it was not considered to be one

[gumby]

I don't know. While looking around to see if I could find my school's charter online I discovered that Harvard never had a royal charter, though at various times they sought one. On the other hand College of William and Mary got one (from the eponymous co-rulers) in 1693.

As my parallel comment noted, there are some notable omissions in that list, quite unsurprising given its thousand year scope.

[tobinfricke]

The Wikipedia article suggests that Stallman understood it as "Free (University (Compiler Kit))" only to find out that it was "(Free University) Compiler Kit":

> When Tanenbaum advised him that the compiler was not free, and that only the university was free, Stallman decided to work on a different compiler.

[gpvos]

Free University is a perfectly fine translation, just not much used because of the high chance of misunderstanding. The "free" does stand for free as in freedom, just a different kind of freedom than you'd think of. The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control. By the time Tanenbaum worked there, the religious character was much watered down, and barely noticeable in the computer science department.

[skissane]

> The Vrije Universiteit was founded as a Reformed protestant christian university, to be free from state control

Abraham Kuyper was a dissenter from the state church (Dutch Reformed), whom he believed had gone astray – after founding VU, he left the state church and founded his own conservative breakaway denomination (the Doleantie) – so although he did want VU to have a Reformed Protestant ethos, he also wanted it to not be controlled by any particular Protestant denomination. As such, the Vrije was meant to denote independence, not just from state control, but also independence from the church control

Somewhat ironically for someone who desired independence from state control, Kuyper later went on to control the state (as Prime Minister)

[gpvos]

Thanks for the added nuance which I missed. As far as I knew, there has always been a strong association, even though not formal, between Kuyper's denomination (the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (GKN)) and the university.

Also ironical that within the GKN, one aspect of his theology was imposed by the synod, leading to a schism - again people fleeing from church control. (And one schism further led to the church I grew up in.)

[skissane]

> (And one schism further led to the church I grew up in.)

If you don't mind me asking, which church is that? Church schisms is just one of those topics that may seem very dry to most people, but I personally find fascinating

[gpvos]

Nederlands Gereformeerde Kerken. We actually re-merged last year with the Gereformeerde Kerken (vrijgemaakt), which were in turn a result of the first schism I described. I find the underlying emotions and personalities (usually the most important!), doctrine and to some extent also the organizational issues quite interesting.

[pjmlp]

Also a point to note to the WASM advocacy folks, this compiler toolkit is one of the first to have a bytecode format for C, called EM, shared across its languages, namely C, Modula-2, Pascal and BASIC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EM_intermediate_language

[sanxiyn]

Interestingly, The Amsterdam Compiler Kit is now open source.

https://tack.sourceforge.net/