To Source or Not to Source (was lp/lpr interface)

[Ronald O. Christian]

In article <16370 at brl-adm.ARPA> rbj at cmr.icst.nbs.gov (Root Boy Jim) writes:
>? In article <16196 at brl-adm.ARPA> ronc at cerebus writes:
>? >Well, with BSD, at least you have source.
>? 
>? I don't understand this comment.  Please amplify?
>
>Exactly what I said. He might need the source to port to a machine that
>has internet support, but not lpr/lpd, which I can't imagine, but might
>conceivably exist. For example, AIX does have some internet support, but
>since it is System V based, might use lp rather than lpr.

Not what I meant.  Why does having BSD imply having source?  You
never heard of a binary distribution?

Mind you *we* have source, but I once worked in a place that was running
a binary of 4.2 BSD from Mt Xinu.  I bet there's a lot more.

Vendors who supply their own version of BSD with their Unix box seldom supply
source.  Some of them merrily map the bugs right over, or leave out the
(sometimes critical) documentation that lurks in /usr/src.  (I remember
a person in wizards saying something like "For crying out loud!  Everyone
knows that the documentation for foo is in /usr/src/doc!"  /usr/src/doc.
What a concept.)

Last time I checked, source for 4.3 costs over twenty thousand.  (20K
for the ATT license, and another 1K for the BSD tapes.)  Not every company
will spring for that.


				Ron
-- 

      Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.)
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