Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: O'pain Software Foundation: (2) Why is it better than AT&T? Keywords: OSF, AT&T, standards, competition Message-ID: <7986@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: 28 May 88 18:54:31 GMT References: <24369@pyramid.pyramid.com> <10978@steinmetz.ge.com> <14181@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <5085@nsc.nsc.com> <11006@steinmetz.ge.com> <503@bacchus.DEC.COM> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 51 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: O'pain Software Foundation: (2) Why is it better than AT&T? Keywords: OSF, AT&T, standards, competition Message-ID: <7986@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: 28 May 88 18:54:31 GMT References: <24369@pyramid.pyramid.com> <10978@steinmetz.ge.com> <14181@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <5085@nsc.nsc.com> <11006@steinmetz.ge.com> <503@bacchus.DEC.COM> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. In article <503@bacchus.DEC.COM> price@decwrl.UUCP (Chuck Price) writes: >DEC cannot get an ABI for the VAX. AT&T wouldn't allow it. Is this a fact? Has DEC tried? >Read the operative words here: SVR3 license *DOES NOT ALLOW* you to >ship man pages. AT&T controls the content of you distribution. Anything >you add becomes the property of AT&T, and/or AT&T can arbitrarily >refuse to renew your license. This is completely wrong. I just reviewed our UNIX System V, Release 3.0 license, sublicensing agreement, and schedule. There is no mention of on-line documentation, presumably because that is not supplied as part of the base UNIX System V Release 3.0 (it's available as an add-on, and presumably sublicensable as such). Printed documentation can be copied (no more than 2 copies per designated CPU). You can of course distribute SVR2 on-line manual entries under terms of SVR2 sublicensing. The only constraints on what software is distributed are that there are several categories, such as the networking utilities, that require (at least after June 30, 1988) that if ANY part of that category is supplied, ALL parts of that category will be supplied. There is no restriction against vendors adding their own extensions, and nowhere is it stated that such extensions become AT&T property. There is no expiration date on the license, so refusal to renew is a non-issue. >Remember, OSF abides by the POSIX standard, a public, OPEN standard. Remember, the SVID abides by the POSIX standard, a public, OPEN standard. >The software vendors and developers will *not* be >better off, because the major computer vendors will be *forced* to >abandon Unix in favor of a business in which we can fairly compete. Excuse me, but that would make very little difference. Those vendors are the ones whose UNIX offerings have not been competitive all along. >If AT&T is so committed to open systems, why doesn't it join OSF? Assuming AT&T has made a decision not to, which I don't think we know at this time, it could well be that they are reluctant to abandon the operating system that they've been gradually improving with certain long-range goals in mind just to pick up a version that starts way behind where AT&T's system currently is. >In fact, I would love to see someone independent of the vendors >perform a study of the AT&T license, and compare it to the mechanisms >which make up the OSF, and report their findings to this conference. I did this, and as previously noted there is nothing particularly obnoxious about AT&T's UNIX licensing terms. In fact the per-CPU binary sublicensing fees under SVR3 are much less expensive than before.