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From: root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: reason why a few sources should come with binary licenses
Message-ID: <639@bu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Sep-85 19:22:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.639
Posted: Thu Sep 12 19:22:13 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 08:25:58 EDT
References: <1149@brl-tgr.ARPA>, <190@megad.UUCP>
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 21

Re: Lots of 'you can too fix that without the sources'

First: You're all right, absolutely unequivocally. Putting your own frob
into /etc/inittab which does some stuff and then invokes getty or your
own /bin/login seems to solve a lot of the problems mentioned.
Re-writing various UNIX commands from scratch is also mentioned, but I
take this less seriously (except from RMS and the GNU folks :-)

So...My question is: is it true? There is no rational argument for
including a few sources with a binary UNIX license? Or is everyone just
showing how cleverly they can work around what they really need (an
animal in a trap will gnaw its foot off to get out)? I mean, ya shoulda
seen the things we did to the RT11 binaries about 10 years ago, woulda
made a grown man cry!

Maybe it's just me, but I really hate the way this UNIX source thing is
going, source sites becoming the small minority and being threatened
with extinction. I think the death of UNIX lies down that road as
adaptation slows to a crawl. But that's a different argument.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University