O'pain Software Foundation: (2) Why is it better than AT&T?

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <503 at bacchus.DEC.COM> price at 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.