RCS vs SCCS (RESULTS - LONG)

[Phil Ngai]

We ran into an issue here at AMD which Eric Bergan's summary did not
really cover. Some people touched on the issue but I believe they are
wrong. I hope I am wrong but I did ask Tichy and unless I misunderstood
him, there are some disadvantages which make RCS less preferable.
These disadvantages are more legal than technical but can not be ignored.

To start with, RCS is *not* public domain. Tichy owns it and in addition
it is contaminated with ATT code (parts of diff). Therefore you need a source
license to legally have RCS source. You need a binary distribution license to
distribute binaries. And, Tichy does not permit (I believe) people to sell
or otherwise make profit off his code.

On the other hand, SCCS comes with System III or V. Free. No extra work.

We have a couple of CPUs licensed for source and RCS is just fine there.
We have a lot of Unix workstations with binary licenses from various vendors.
Guess what came with them? That's right, SCCS. Not RCS.

I think Tichy's use restrictions are why the vendors did not include RCS.

I believe we are not allowed to put the RCS source on our non-source licensed
workstations and compile it and run the binaries. I also believe we are not
allowed to just buy source for one workstation, compile binaries, and put them
on all the other workstations unless we buy a binary distribution license,
even to distribute to ourselves.

It would be very easy to cheat and do it anyway but that is not how we
operate.

Since it is a pain to switch back and forth between systems we have to
chose the inferior system because it is more widely available. I doubt this
is what Tichy intended, but that's how it works out.

I would be happy to hear of vendors such as Sun who do include RCS.

In article <308 at osiris.UUCP>, eric at osiris.UUCP (Eric Bergan) writes:
> From: Craig Partridge <umcp-cs!seismo!craig at loki.ARPA>
> 	(1) RCS is sort of in the public domain.  (I think Tichy claims
> 	some minor rights).  SCCS isn't.

Nope, it's contaminated with ATT code and Tichy owns the rest.

> From: umcp-cs!seismo!arnold at ucsf-cgl.ARPA (Ken Arnold)
> The other advantage of RCS is that it is more portable, since it doesn't
> require a special license from Bell, and is, unless I am much mistaken,
> public domain.  This means that, if you want to send source around, you
> can send them RCS if they don't already have it.

Nope, it requires a Unix source license to have it.

> From: Guy Harris <ulysses!seismo!rlgvax!guy>
> Well, we haven't used SCCS much, but what I've seen of it leads me to
> believe that RCS meets our needs better than SCCS.

Guy, does Sun offer it? If not, why not?
-- 
 I speak for myself and no one else.

 Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720
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