Unix optimized for SPARC? (really just more OSF babble)

[Barry Shein]

It seems to me that the vendors in OSF could freeze at their current
level of AT&T license (eg. SysVR3.1) and proceed to develop whatever
they wanted from there using as much or as little of the original
source as pleased them. My guess is that the licensing and royalties
would remain the same indefinitely, which I infer was acceptable at
some point. The only possible loser in that game would be new
organizations who can no longer purchase older AT&T source licenses
and find current ones somehow unpalatable (or inappropriate.)

This of course does not give them (OSF) any freedom with the sources
in terms of distribution (at least source still containing AT&T code)
but I'm not convinced that this is in conflict with their goals.

You want their (OSF's) full source dist? You'll have to produce a
bona-fide AT&T source license (and, perhaps, an additional OSF source
license.) Not a whole lot unlike the current BSD/CSRG situation, first
produce a (possibly mildly ancient, 32v will do in this case) AT&T
license, then obtain or produce a BSD license, fair enough.

The problems people seem to be having here is deciding what the goals
might be, rather than the means to attain them (tho many have jumped
to this latter topic.)

Too many assume that OSF's (immediate) goals are to produce yet
another Unix from the ground up, something I'm not convinced of
particularly.

I might be convinced they intend to produce another Unix beyond the
current version, distinct from SysVR4 (again, similar to BSD's
traditional position, tracing down from V7), and present it as a
multi-vendor standard among OSF members and otherwise try to generate
interest, particularly in getting the US Govt to approve it as
acceptable in RFP bids etc where "Unix" is required, I would imagine
the vendors involved have a good chance of accomplishing that. Voila',
a frozen external situation (with AT&T) and a Unix product just as our
tax bucks require.

Nothing particularly evil or vile here, just an observation that one
can (as always) purchase a version of AT&T's code and proceed wherever
they like with it as a proprietary product with the major risk being
(other than obeying the original licensing restrictions) that of
becoming either de facto or de jure non-standard. An organization like
OSF could fight that image, hard to be damnably non-standard when N
different major vendors are shipping the stuff, a different standard
perhaps.

Of course, plans of mice and men and all that...

	-Barry Shein, Boston University