Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!spdcc!tauxersvilli!alphalpha!nazgul
From: nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: OpenWindows Source Facts
Keywords: rumors
Message-ID: <1990Nov23.170759.18880@alphalpha.com>
Date: 23 Nov 90 17:07:59 GMT
References: <3137@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: asi
Lines: 71

In article <3137@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> naughton@wind.Eng.Sun.COM (Patrick Naughton) writes:

Thanks, I was looking forward to a more detailed explanation.  Unfortunately
I'm more confused now than ever.

>The source is free, but you must buy the documentation and media
>directly from a Sun distributor to get it.  The $995 barely covers our
Coke is nearly free too, it's actually the bottle that is expensive,
but they don't claim to be giving away free cokes (with a small fee to
cover the packaging and documentation)!  But hey, this is a move in
the right direction, now it's OSF's turn.  I just hope they have the
sense to couch their offer in less slimey rhetoric.

>To be eligible for a license you must fit one of these four categories:
>
> o) SPARC archictecture hardware vendor.
> o) SVR4 licensee.
> o) non-unix platform developer (Amiga, MacOS, etc).
> o) NeWS lisceneee prior to Oct, 1987.

Whoa.  Am I on drugs, or did you just tell me that not only is this
$950 product free, but almost none of the people reading this can
"buy" it?  I'm not a hardware vendor, I'm not a (thank God) SVR4
licensee, I don't develop for non-unix platforms, and I've never
licensed NeWS prior to 1987 (87!?).  Are you telling me I can't
buy this stuff?  If that's the case, the only way a Unix software
developer can buy this stuff is to license SVR4.  If that means
*source* license, then the price of this "free" product suddenly
went up an order of magnitude or so.  If you mean binary license,
then we're all going to have to wait awhile; SVR4 isn't all that
common yet.

I must have read this wrong.  What "license" are you talking about?

>Hardware vendors may deliver OpenWindows binaries on their platform but
>must pay royalties to Sun at the following schedule:

I see you made the same mistake that OSF did.  I don't care what
the hardware vendor pays.  I'm a software vendor.  Suppose I make
this nifty piece of OW software that requires your server.  And
I want to sell it on as many platforms as possible.  But most of
those platforms don't run OW.  So I decide to bundle OW with my
software product.  How much do *I* have to pay you?

>f3 font's are for display only.  Using xnews to drive printers (a la
>NeWSprint) is not covered under this license agreement.  Royalty
>agreements may be arranged on a contractual basis with Sun.

How are you going to enforce that?  Does this means it is illegal
for someone to ship to the net a piece of software that uses this
server to print to a printer?

>The source includes the full source to the X11/NeWS server, the OPEN
>LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit (OLIT), the XView toolkit, and the clients
>clock, cmdtool, shelltool, props, textedit, and olwm.  The 57 standard
>F3 OpenFonts(TM) are included.

Is the XView toolkit covered under the binary distribution royalties?
If so, how do you tell whether I got one from you or off of expo?

>Hope this clears some things up.

Not really.
-- 
Alphalpha Software, Inc.	|	motif-request@alphalpha.com
nazgul@alphalpha.com		|-----------------------------------
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I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.