Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!ttidca!mb
From: mb@ttidca.TTI.COM (Michael Bloom)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Open Software Foundation
Message-ID: <2554@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 20 May 88 04:43:54 GMT
References: <5412@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <3166@pdn.UUCP> <754@fig.bbn.com>
Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica
Lines: 36


 In article <754@fig.bbn.com> rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:

  < The Open Software Foundation has $90Million in funding, and are going
  < to be hiring "hundreds" of people.
     .....
  < Reading between the lines, I gather they're going to rewrite EVERYTHING so
  < that it contains no ATT licensed code.  If they pull it off, many people
  < will be very happy.  I only wish they had given the money to GNU (I know
  < some people talked to some other people) or UCB.

Curious, the similarity between the names "Free" and "Open" Software
Foundation.  Perhaps this is the start of "glasnost" in the Un*x world...

Seriously, what you are wishing for is a *damn* good idea in my
opinion.  Perhaps if enough of the potential customers of this new
organization share this opinion and *voice* it (!), it could come to
pass.  Doing so could end up having much more productive results than
just sitting back, waiting to see what happens.

Certainly rms and crew have demonstrated high levels of competence, quality
and productivity.  An investment by the OSF in the FSF could pay off
handsomely. 

The question is: Is this new organization *really* interested in
producing a non-proprietary system, or one that is still proprietary
but the terms of which (no royalties to ATT) are more to their liking?

If the latter, I see no special incentive (especially since, the last
I heard, Locus still does not support the fast file system) to switch
from AT&T licensed code to OSF licensed code. 

The royalty fees will most likely be competitive (although there will
also be the opportunity for price wars).

- mb