Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!bzs From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Unix optimized for SPARC? (really just more OSF babble) Message-ID: <23631@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: 6 Jul 88 16:00:07 GMT References: <23621@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <253@iconsys.UUCP> <10586@muscat.UUCP> Distribution: comp.unix.wizards Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci. Lines: 32 In-reply-to: Richard@boingo.dec.com's message of 6 Jul 88 04:42:11 GMT Fascinating data point! IBM negotiated an "in perpetuity" SysVR2 license with ATT. OSF will use IBM's AIX as a base for their Unix. Put those together and everything becomes *much* more clear, thanks! As to newcomers needing licenses I would guess that they can choose between buying whatever is current from AT&T and then applying for an OSF license or simply become some sort of OSF redistributor, perhaps that's the loophole, sublicensing under OSF's license, so anyone joining up with OSF can basically negotiate T&C's with OSF and AT&T is a minor factor. I know that AT&T sold (pricey) licenses which allowed various sublicensing, tho I thought that was basically binary-only sublicensing, then again, make your changes within the auspices of OSF itself and have them sublicense the changes back to you, as long as ownership of the changes remains within the foundation that should be legitimate and it serves the "sharing" aspect to some extent (somewhere everyone has to get his/her head into an appropriate noose, that's typical in these joint technology ventures, having to sublicense your own changes from the foundation sounds about right.) It also explains a little more clearly why OSF needs the development facilities they seem to be building. If all that's close to correct things are starting to make a lot more sense. -Barry Shein, Boston University