Plan 9 encumbrance

[dmr@plan9.att.com dmr@plan9.att.com]

Victor Yoraikin raised a good issue: what sort of entanglements might
people get themselves into by using, or even trying, Plan 9?

The terms of the new Plan 9 distribution will be much more liberal
than any Unix source license ever was, or indeed than the current Plan
9 educational ones.  The intent is to use a shrink-wrap license (no
signature) that restricts the purchaser only by forbidding commercial
sale of products or services based on the Plan 9 code, and by saying
that the source must not be made visible on networks outside the
purchaser's organization.

By contrast, Unix source licenses were and are fearsome documents,
with references to trade-secret "methods and concepts" and
restrictions on use even for educational purposes.

It's true that Plan 9 is more encumbered than Linux, and differently
encumbered compared to the usual GPL things; AT&T will insist on
negotiating a separate, commercial license if you want to sell things
derived from our code (in the copyright sense).  But the whole point
of releasing it in this way is to get people to use it.  Even the
bureaucracy is aware that we're competing not only with Linux and BSDI
and other low-cost BSD-derived systems, but also with commercial Unix,
OS/2, and Windows of all styles.

We'll post actual wording of the license here and to the net as soon
as we have sprung it from the lawyers, so you can judge what it
commits you to.

Fundamentally, USL sued BSDI and then UC Berkeley for producing
a Unix clone (and lost).  BSDI and UCB's CSRG thought this
was a worthwhile thing to do because the real thing was overpriced
and hard to get.  Plan 9 will be cheap and easy to get.
Situations change, and we learn.

        Dennis