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From: mouse@LIGHTNING.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  OpenWindows Source Facts
Message-ID: <9011200830.AA17238@lightning.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 20 Nov 90 08:30:50 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 46

> The [OpenWindows] source it NOT freely copiable... it is licensed for
> free, but the licensee may not redistribute the source...

Marvelous doublespeak.

> or make it available via ftp, etc...

> The source is free, but you must buy the documentation and media
> directly from a Sun distributor to get it.

I fail to see the difference.  You have to pay and you can't
redistribute; it's not free in either of the senses of the word.
Calling it free doesn't make it free.

> The $995 barely covers our costs for producing and distributing the
> over 40 lbs of docs, not to mention the cost of administering this
> release process.

Awww, poor fellas...want to get shut of the whole mess?  I'm sure
expo's ftp server would be glad to take over the software distribution
and the book publishers wouldn't object to handling the books.

I don't need extra copies of books I have, and the other ones I don't
need, or I'd already have them.  I just want the bits.  Preferably by
ftp (I don't need more tapes cluttering the racks), and if it really is
free, as you've been valiantly trying to pretend, I can't see why not:
if the source is free, nobody is getting any money from the copies of
it that are sold. So nobody loses anything if it's put up for *truly*
free distribution, like for ftp, and many people gain.

Sorry, your claim of "The source is free" rings a kinda hollow.

> Hope this clears some things up.

Yup.  Pretty much what I was fearing.  I suppose I should have expected
it from the company that produces a proprietary window system and calls
it OpenWindows, proprietary font technology and calls it OpenFonts....
(Of course, the "Open" Software Foundation started the whole attempt to
redefine "open", but that doesn't excuse Sun's joining.)

Well, I'll know what it means next time Sun says something is free.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu