Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Suggestion regarding Minix distribution
Message-ID: <3376@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 26 Sep 89 14:04:06 GMT
References: <24806@louie.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 23

In article <24806@louie.udel.EDU> HELMER%SDNET.BITNET@vm1.nodak.edu (Guy Helmer) writes:
>     1) Distribute the minimal set of executables and Prentice-Hall
>        copyrighted source code as the official MINIX, and
>     2) Have a group (MINIX User's Group (MUG?)) offer everything
>        else

Basically, I agree.  At least, what I mean is, a certain amount of stuff
goes into the P-H distribution, but clearly not everything.  How much goes
in is something I have to figure out, but clearly there will be things that
don't go in.  One possibility is for a MUG to distribute that.  Another
possibility is for P-H to have a second set of disks for Supplementary
programs.  An advantage of having P-H doing it is that despite the numerous
complaints about them, by-and-large they get it right, and they are set up
to distributed packages.  The 20 times they screwed up, we have heard about
it at great length on the net, but the thousand times they didn't, of
course nobody said anything.

When I post 1.4b this Fall, everyone should take a look to see if I have
omitted useful software.  Perhaps we can compile a list of things that I
don't want to include in the basic distribution, and these can at least
be archived in some convenient place and maybe eventually put on disk.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)