Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!<UNAUTHENTICATED>+
From: Rick.Rashid@CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Subject: Re: when will mach be free software ?
Message-ID: <QacQKjq00jdX41KmBI@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 16 Jul 90 13:48:31 GMT
References: <1990Jul11.221642.1768@scuzzy.uucp>
	<1990Jul13.180640.29423@utopia.uucp>,
	<A0020.90Jul16130726@aix370.rrz.uni-koeln.de>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 32
In-Reply-To: <A0020.90Jul16130726@aix370.rrz.uni-koeln.de>

Axel is quite correct.  Mach is being distributed world-wide (and has
been for quite some time).
There is even a Japanese company, Omron, which makes and sells a
4-processor 88000 workstation
which uses Mach as its base operating system.  Other Japanese and
European companies have been
working with Mach for some time now.   

If you want Mach release 2.5 you can get it from CMU by contacting
mach@cs.cmu.edu.  A commercial
release is available from Mt. Xinu for the Sun 3, VAX, IBM RT and more
recently the i386.   You can 
contact Mt Xinu's Mach group by contacting mtxinu-mach@mtxinu.com.   The
open software foundation
has based its OSF/1 kernel on Mach release 2.5 and that system is being
snapshot released to OSF members.
Several companies were, in fact, showing off OSF/1 snapshots at USENIX. 
 

The pure Mach kernel with no Unix code inside is being tested
extensively now and prepared for release.
A presentation on it was given at the Summer USENIX in Anaheim, CA and
the paper is in the proceedings.
The initial release will be for the i386 (thanks to Intel) and an
announcement of its availability will be made
on this bboard as well as on the info-mach mailing list.  The pure
kernel will require no AT&T license but
you should keep in mind that a kernel alone is not a complete system. 
Its usefulness will initially be as
a base system software environment for corporations and research
organizations, not as an end user
product.