xdigit

[Chris W Skelly]

Folks,

This whole xgrass/xwindows thing seems kind of confusing to me,
well actually its this Motif thing that is confusing me!

I am relatively new to the Xwindows environment. Its strengths
are obvious, but particularly, it like GRASS is public domain.
And that more than anything else appeals to this academic, whose
research is non-profit!

My understanding of Motif is that it is a commercial product? And,
that Xwindows and Grass (public domain packages) are or are 
becoming dependent upon this commercial product. So in future to
take advantage of these very important (to me) public domain 
packages I am going to have to purchace Motif? If this is the case
my list of questions is endless....

1. How much?
2. What are the licenceing restrictions? (Our uni sys admin says
   that we do not have a uni licence...do they exist?)
3. is it wise to base public domain development upon commercial
   packages?
4. is the gnu software likewise dependent upon Motif?
5. Am I missing the point? Overexaggerating?

I am not really paniced, just confused as usual. Sun informs me
that the new version of Solaris has Motif libraries. Of course
they also tell me that this new version is binary compatible with
4.3.1! HoooRayyyyyy! Why didn't they do this in the first place!

Cheers,
Chris