Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Help us defend against VMS!
Message-ID: <20586@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 12 Mar 88 21:22:03 GMT
References: <2235@bsu-cs.UUCP> <892@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> <4236@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 58
In-reply-to: davidli@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu's message of 9 Mar 88 14:51:16 GMT



>I don't understand these OS wars here in comp.os.vms.  I mean, the two
>major operating systems are both, for the most part, proprietary.  If you
>don't believe this, try writing your own version of UNIX and marketing it
>without paying AT&T any money.  You'll quickly experience the how "non
>proprietary" it really is!

Several companies and organizations have done exactly this, among them
are IDRIS from Whitesmith's, UNOS from Charles River Data Systems,
Doug Comer's XINU, Andy Tannenbaum's MINIX, something called TRIX I
don't honestly know much about. Richard Stallman's Free Software
Foundation has committed to providing such a system in the near future
and has many of the utilities needed already available, the kernel is
in development.

I suppose someone could do the same with VMS although that remains
much more hypothetical. I guess in all fairness one can point to some
of the VMS compatibility products available under Unix systems such as
ELXSI's EMBOS (I think that's right) and others which include features
like a VMS compatible Fortran, I assume some of the libraries for that
tho probably a small subset, I think EMBOS even comes with a
home-grown DCL, EMBOS is not unique, Sun and others are shipping
similar products.

Anyhow, the point's moot I believe, I don't think the ability to write
a look-alike product (or not) is a test of proprietariness, at least
not inasmuch as it has been discussed here. The real point was whether
or not other companies could take the source code, modify it, put it
on their own iron and market it simply by paying a royalty fee to the
owners. In the case of Unix, yes, and many many companies owe their
livelihood to this fact, in the case of VMS, no, not really, I suppose
one could split hairs over the third-party repackagers (people who
take vaxes and vms and do various repackaging under their own labels,
VARs, OEMs, whatever) but it really would be just that, splitting
hairs.

However, you are right in one regard, there is no doubt that AT&T owns
Unix (whatever that means exactly, certainly the trademark "Unix" and
the specific source code they have covered with their licenses), that
is not by any stretch of the imagination in the "public domain".
Whether the look and feel or interface is proprietary is another issue
that's really a legal one not completely up to the wishes of any vendor.

The real point is, however, that AT&T has made their software quite
available for use as a platform for commercial ventures of almost any
type. Although $40,000 may seem like a lot of money for a commercial
source license (the first thing you need) it really isn't, it's very
cheap to someone planning on going into the software business (other
than garage start-ups), probably less than you'll pay for any one
employee's one year salary. The binary redistribution rights entail
some flat fee (I forget what, but something like $20K one-time) and a
royalty that varies, usually around $150 per system, enough to allow
the current IBM/PC versions (typically around $500 retail.)

Anyhow, I guess it's more of a semantic disagreement over exactly
what "proprietary" means.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University