Berkeley Flame

[Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL]

Your article follows:
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Berkeley Flame
References: <13415 at sri-arpa.UUCP> <585 at ihuxx.UUCP> <3728 at umcp-cs.UUCP>

	Ignatz again makes the same strange statement we heard from
	Laura a while ago--you should not change Unix at all ever,
	even if you are a research University doing research in operating
	systems.  Or if you do change it, you should keep it a secret,
	or if you don't keep it a secret you should refuse to ever, ever
	let anyone else use the change you made.
	
	I'm afraid to my mind this amounts to stifling research and preventing
	the free flow of scientific information among researchers.  
	If someone does something interesting to an operating system,
	even if they write an interesting paper about it, I like to
	see it for myself, try it out, before forming a definite opinion
	about it.  One cannot really resolve the merits of languages,
	or operating systems, without trying them oneself for a decent
	period of time.
	
	So what is the poor researcher to do when the calls and/or tapes
	come in from across the country requesting copies of the system
	just described in the xyz journal?  If you say no, you are
	tarnishing your reputation and unethically hindering scientific
	research.  If you say yes Ignatz and Laura will flame at you.
	
	I'll say yes.
	-- 
	spoken:	mark weiser
	UUCP:	{seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark
	CSNet:	mark at umcp-cs
	ARPA:	mark.umcp-cs at CSNet-Relay

Oh, come now.  Read what I said, not what you wanted to hear.
Unix(Tm), in even its best form, is an immature operating system at
best.  It certainly needs development, study, and, yes, papers and
code distribution--in the academic community.  But I quite certainly
feel that *licensing* the system--not just requiring the purchaser
have a source license for the original AT&T product, but selling the
system for money--is another step entirely.  This certainly implies
not just a research system, but a commercial product.  This
implication was borne out when the system was sold--and not for the
trifling sum that universities pay for it, either--to commercial houses
for incorporation into product lines.  At that point, academic freedom
took a back seat to a financial enterprise.  But, in fact, because of
those self-same academic ethics and reputation, I expect a University
Computer Science department to be more rigorous about enforcing the
portability and commonality of Unix than a purely commercial concern.
Remember that code and system portability are ostensibly at the heart
of the Unix concept.  If you want to defend their right to disseminate
the results of academic research, then they should have GIVEN copies
to any legal AT&T source license holder, for only the cost of tapes
and mailing--such as has been done in a number of cases. (ICON,
Gosling's EMACS).  And why not especially forward the stuff to the
people who originally developed the system?  Keep some sort of standard?
But if not, please warn every one that whatever you call it, it isn't
fully compatible with the system of the same name, from the people who
first developed it.

Do your work for DARPA.  Disseminate your results.  Yelp all you want
to.  But I can still take code from v6, v7, System III, and System IV
and get it going with a minimum of fuss.  BSD to any of the others is
a pain, and that's what contributed to my even opening my mouth.  Drop
the issue, everyone; I'm going back to try to convert some more ioctl
calls, etc.  Responses to the standard place.

			Dave Ihnat
			ihuxx!ignatz