Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[presotto]

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I was living with a Nextstation running along my newer machines until
quite recently.

So far, the authentication is the same, though we intend to change
that in the not too distant future.  Ditto the 9 protocol.

The cpu command uses a different protocol than the old systems.  You
can recompile the old cpu command on the new systems (call it ocpu
or something) and use it to talk to the old systems.  The new cpu
command uses a different port so they can both exist on the
same machine though you will have to edit ocpu.c to change the service
name to something else.

Graphics are radicly different so you can't cpu from one to the other
and use any of the graphic commands like rio, sam, etc.

Sam -r will work though since the protocol between the halves is
unchanged.

Of course, you could just port the new system to the Sun hardware.
It shouldn't be that difficult with both the new and old in hand.
We didn't because we don't really use suns, most of our old processors
are mips.


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From: Bill Gunshannon <bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 13:58:06 GMT
Message-ID: <8ins9g$29pn$1@info.cs.uofs.edu>

It was posted that Sparc support was not rolled into the new Plan9.
Is it possible that Version 2 systems will function along side of
Version 3 systems??  I have a whole bunch of SparcStation 1's that
made up the majority of my previous Plan9 network.  I was hoping to
continue the use of these as CPU Pool machines and Terminals.

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
bill@cs.scranton.edu     |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[splite]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2000 at 10:51:37AM -0400, presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> [...]
> 
> Of course, you could just port the new system to the Sun hardware.
> It shouldn't be that difficult with both the new and old in hand.
> We didn't because we don't really use suns, most of our old processors
> are mips.

As nobody seems to have done it yet, I thought I'd have a go at a SPARC
(sun4c) port of 3rd ed.  I do have a 2nd ed. license, but I'm a bit worried
about "contaminating" a 3rd ed. port by looking at or incorporating 2nd ed.
source.  Should I be?

Of course, if somebody has already done the port, so much the better...

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Mike Acar]

splite@purdue.edu wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2000 at 10:51:37AM -0400, presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> > [...]
> > 
> > Of course, you could just port the new system to the Sun hardware.
> > It shouldn't be that difficult with both the new and old in hand.
> > We didn't because we don't really use suns, most of our old processors
> > are mips.
> 
> As nobody seems to have done it yet, I thought I'd have a go at a SPARC
> (sun4c) port of 3rd ed.  I do have a 2nd ed. license, but I'm a bit worried
> about "contaminating" a 3rd ed. port by looking at or incorporating 2nd ed.
> source.  Should I be?
> 
> Of course, if somebody has already done the port, so much the better...
> 

We have a couple of old SPARCStation 5s (sun4m?) which aren't doing anything,
so we (meaning another sysadmin and I) thought that making them Plan 9
terminals would be cool. My ignorance of SPARCs is nearly complete and I
haven't hacked on a real OS kernel before but we'd be interested in helping
out.

-- 
Brilliance and gorgeousness                        |   Mike Acar
And we tell ourselves we don't want the treasures  |   mike@trolltech.com
But we hate the glass anyway                       |

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Boyd Roberts]

i remember rob telling me ages ago that getting the
floating point to 'survive' interrupts on the sparc
was a nightmare.

a read of the v2 code is probably a must.  rob? knows
all the gory details.  this is some dim memory i have
from '92 or '93.

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[rob pike]

> And how would all of this be affected or complicated by the fact that you can now
> get limited use Solaris source code licenses for $75?

Probably not at all, but I'm not a lawyer.

-rob

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Bobby Dimmette]

And how would all of this be affected or complicated by the fact that you can now
get limited use Solaris source code licenses for $75?

rob pike wrote:

> > I'm also somewhat curious to know if there would be any ramifications of using
> > the 2nd ed sources as a base for 3rd ed work...
>
> As I've said here several times before, the 2nd edition contains material
> that was released under the conditions of its license, which included a
> transfer of money.  The 3rd edition has a different, cost-free, open-source
> license.  Some things, such as the sources for SGI and SUN machines,
> were excluded from the 3rd edition because we didn't have permission
> to release it under its license terms.
>
> You need a 2nd edition license to get the SUN material, and once you've
> got it you can't expect any work based on it to be included in updates to the
> 3rd edition because we don't have the rights to release it that way.
>
> I'm not even sure how to get a 2nd edition license now.  There were a
> limited number of CDs printed and they're sold out and the publisher
> who was handling the payment doesn't offer it any more.
>
> -rob

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[geoff]

>i believe the phrase 'like pulling teeth' was used in reference to
>getting certain information from certain vendors.

I believe pulling teeth is easier, you just need a good set of pliers
and a strong arm.  Maybe a chisel and hammer in the worst case.
Getting the necessary information or permission to distribute it
from Sun or SGI was nearly impossible when I (and others) tried to
do it (and not just for Plan 9).  It's possible that application
of sufficient heaps of gold, NDAs or both might have eased things.
Sun and SGI insiders did point people at /usr/include, wherein
there was hardware documentation found nowhere else.

The situation these days is somewhat different.  US legislation
such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has muddied the legality
of reverse engineering such as disassembling ROMs.  SGI has got
even more secretive (I'm told that at least one university with
a properly-executed source-code licence for Irix 6.something
can't get said source from SGI).  On the other hand, Solaris 8 source
is allegedly freely available under what they call `community source'
terms; I haven't examined it to see if that includes the interesting
bits like bootstrapping, running the MMU(s) and the kernel memory map.
Plus the `L' word seems to enable Jedi mind-tricks against vendors
(`I'm writing a Linux driver for your harware.  Give me your hardware
documentation.'  `You're writing a Linux driver.  I'll give you the
hardware documentation.').  Even SGI are doing Linux ports.
And as forsyth and others have observed, the various free Unixes
and Linux have already extracted a good deal of information about
hardware from vendors or other sources.

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[forsyth]

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>>problem is that you have to get proprietary info out of Sun and that
>>would kill any chance of a release.

no, you wouldn't. that's the annoying thing.
there are public ports of other systems to the sparcs (and SGIs) that reveal the details.
unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily remove the restrictions on the older plan 9 code.


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From: "Boyd Roberts" <boyd@planete.net>
To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:23:48 +0100
Message-ID: <006201c08ae9$ca2354a0$0ab9c6d4@cybercable.fr>

From: Mike Acar <mike@trolltech.com>
> > You need a 2nd edition license to get the SUN material, and once you've
> > got it you can't expect any work based on it to be included in updates to
the
> > 3rd edition because we don't have the rights to release it that way.
>
> Meaning that the most we could do with the 2nd edition code would be look it
> over before reimplementing its functionality for the 3rd edition, and even
that
> I think I'd be somewhat hesitant to do; getting a SPARC booting but being
> unable to release the code seems a bit of a waste.

err, if you had a 2nd ed license you couldn't release the code under the
terms of the 3rd ed licence.  i'm not even sure that 'looking' at the code
would wouldn't taint a release to a 3rd ed site.

now, if you did a 3rd ed port to the sparc then i would imagine you
could release this work.  however, i am not a lawyer.  i think the
problem is that you have to get proprietary info out of Sun and that
would kill any chance of a release.

i believe the phrase 'like pulling teeth' was used in reference to
getting certain information from certain vendors.

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Christian Smith]

Surely the relevent info could be gleaned from {Net|Open}BSD, without any
license problems?

I didn't realise that the SUN and SGI code wasn't released. I was rather
looking forward to getting an IPX and an Indigo running with 3rd edition.

Christian

On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Boyd Roberts wrote:

>From: Mike Acar <mike@trolltech.com>
>> > You need a 2nd edition license to get the SUN material, and once you've
>> > got it you can't expect any work based on it to be included in updates to
>the
>> > 3rd edition because we don't have the rights to release it that way.
>>
>> Meaning that the most we could do with the 2nd edition code would be look it
>> over before reimplementing its functionality for the 3rd edition, and even
>that
>> I think I'd be somewhat hesitant to do; getting a SPARC booting but being
>> unable to release the code seems a bit of a waste.
>
>err, if you had a 2nd ed license you couldn't release the code under the
>terms of the 3rd ed licence.  i'm not even sure that 'looking' at the code
>would wouldn't taint a release to a 3rd ed site.
>
>now, if you did a 3rd ed port to the sparc then i would imagine you
>could release this work.  however, i am not a lawyer.  i think the
>problem is that you have to get proprietary info out of Sun and that
>would kill any chance of a release.
>
>i believe the phrase 'like pulling teeth' was used in reference to
>getting certain information from certain vendors.
>
>

-- 
    /"\
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     X                           - AGAINST MS ATTACHMENTS
    / \

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Mike Acar]

"Boyd Roberts" <boyd@planete.net> wrote:
> 
> err, if you had a 2nd ed license you couldn't release the code under the
> terms of the 3rd ed licence.  i'm not even sure that 'looking' at the code
> would wouldn't taint a release to a 3rd ed site.

Yeah, that's exactly my point.

> now, if you did a 3rd ed port to the sparc then i would imagine you
> could release this work.  however, i am not a lawyer.  i think the
> problem is that you have to get proprietary info out of Sun and that
> would kill any chance of a release.

Well, given the availability of things like Linux and NetBSD for SPARC, I'd be
very surprised if the necessary information isn't out there, if in no other
form than the source for those systems.

> i believe the phrase 'like pulling teeth' was used in reference to
> getting certain information from certain vendors.

Heh, this wouldn't surprise me. In the particular case of Sun, given their
recent leap onto the open source bandwagon and support of Linux on SPARC, it's
probably not that bad, especially for older hardware. Trying to get 3D
programming information out of nVidia, on the other hand....

-- 
Brilliance and gorgeousness                        |   Mike Acar
And we tell ourselves we don't want the treasures  |   mike@trolltech.com
But we hate the glass anyway                       |

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Boyd Roberts]

From: Mike Acar <mike@trolltech.com>
> > You need a 2nd edition license to get the SUN material, and once you've
> > got it you can't expect any work based on it to be included in updates to
the
> > 3rd edition because we don't have the rights to release it that way.
>
> Meaning that the most we could do with the 2nd edition code would be look it
> over before reimplementing its functionality for the 3rd edition, and even
that
> I think I'd be somewhat hesitant to do; getting a SPARC booting but being
> unable to release the code seems a bit of a waste.

err, if you had a 2nd ed license you couldn't release the code under the
terms of the 3rd ed licence.  i'm not even sure that 'looking' at the code
would wouldn't taint a release to a 3rd ed site.

now, if you did a 3rd ed port to the sparc then i would imagine you
could release this work.  however, i am not a lawyer.  i think the
problem is that you have to get proprietary info out of Sun and that
would kill any chance of a release.

i believe the phrase 'like pulling teeth' was used in reference to
getting certain information from certain vendors.

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Mike Acar]

"rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> 
> As I've said here several times before, the 2nd edition contains material
> that was released under the conditions of its license, which included a
> transfer of money.  The 3rd edition has a different, cost-free, open-source
> license.  Some things, such as the sources for SGI and SUN machines,
> were excluded from the 3rd edition because we didn't have permission
> to release it under its license terms.

Indeed, I found this information in the archives; maybe I should've mentioned
it so I didn't look like I hadn't done my homework ;)

> You need a 2nd edition license to get the SUN material, and once you've
> got it you can't expect any work based on it to be included in updates to the
> 3rd edition because we don't have the rights to release it that way.

Meaning that the most we could do with the 2nd edition code would be look it
over before reimplementing its functionality for the 3rd edition, and even that
I think I'd be somewhat hesitant to do; getting a SPARC booting but being
unable to release the code seems a bit of a waste.

> I'm not even sure how to get a 2nd edition license now.  There were a
> limited number of CDs printed and they're sold out and the publisher
> who was handling the payment doesn't offer it any more.

And this rather makes my concerns with intellectual property moot.

-- 
Brilliance and gorgeousness                        |   Mike Acar
And we tell ourselves we don't want the treasures  |   mike@trolltech.com
But we hate the glass anyway                       |

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[rob pike]

> I'm also somewhat curious to know if there would be any ramifications of using
> the 2nd ed sources as a base for 3rd ed work...

As I've said here several times before, the 2nd edition contains material
that was released under the conditions of its license, which included a
transfer of money.  The 3rd edition has a different, cost-free, open-source
license.  Some things, such as the sources for SGI and SUN machines,
were excluded from the 3rd edition because we didn't have permission
to release it under its license terms.

You need a 2nd edition license to get the SUN material, and once you've
got it you can't expect any work based on it to be included in updates to the
3rd edition because we don't have the rights to release it that way.

I'm not even sure how to get a 2nd edition license now.  There were a
limited number of CDs printed and they're sold out and the publisher
who was handling the payment doesn't offer it any more.

-rob

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Mike Acar]

forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> if you've got 2nd edition source i can let you have a 2nd edition port
> to the sparc lx/classic (which is sun4m, i think).  i haven't got the hardwar
>e
> any more so i can't convert it to 3rd edition myself.

We don't, unfortunately. Is it still possible to get a license for the 2nd ed
source?

I'm also somewhat curious to know if there would be any ramifications of using
the 2nd ed sources as a base for 3rd ed work...

-- 
Brilliance and gorgeousness                        |   Mike Acar
And we tell ourselves we don't want the treasures  |   mike@trolltech.com
But we hate the glass anyway                       |

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[forsyth]

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if you've got 2nd edition source i can let you have a 2nd edition port
to the sparc lx/classic (which is sun4m, i think).  i haven't got the hardware
any more so i can't convert it to 3rd edition myself.


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From: Mike Acar <mike@trolltech.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:52:17 +0100
Message-ID: <20010129185218Z114898-5059+49@trolltech.com>


splite@purdue.edu wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2000 at 10:51:37AM -0400, presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> > [...]
> > 
> > Of course, you could just port the new system to the Sun hardware.
> > It shouldn't be that difficult with both the new and old in hand.
> > We didn't because we don't really use suns, most of our old processors
> > are mips.
> 
> As nobody seems to have done it yet, I thought I'd have a go at a SPARC
> (sun4c) port of 3rd ed.  I do have a 2nd ed. license, but I'm a bit worried
> about "contaminating" a 3rd ed. port by looking at or incorporating 2nd ed.
> source.  Should I be?
> 
> Of course, if somebody has already done the port, so much the better...
> 

We have a couple of old SPARCStation 5s (sun4m?) which aren't doing anything,
so we (meaning another sysadmin and I) thought that making them Plan 9
terminals would be cool. My ignorance of SPARCs is nearly complete and I
haven't hacked on a real OS kernel before but we'd be interested in helping
out.

-- 
Brilliance and gorgeousness                        |   Mike Acar
And we tell ourselves we don't want the treasures  |   mike@trolltech.com
But we hate the glass anyway                       |

Re: [9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[rob pike]

It's hard, yes, but we have an elegant solution involving
compiling code on the fly in the trap handler.

-rob

[9fans] Running Version 2 along with Version 3

[Bill Gunshannon]

It was posted that Sparc support was not rolled into the new Plan9.
Is it possible that Version 2 systems will function along side of
Version 3 systems??  I have a whole bunch of SparcStation 1's that
made up the majority of my previous Plan9 network.  I was hoping to
continue the use of these as CPU Pool machines and Terminals.

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
bill@cs.scranton.edu     |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>