Plan 9 encumbrance

Plan 9 encumbrance

[arnold]

Can you send some pointers to vsta? I've never heard of it ...

Thanks,

Arnold

Plan 9 encumbrance

[Dave]

arnold@skeeve.atl.ga.us writes:
> Can you send some pointers to vsta? I've never heard of it ...

http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~jeske/VSTa

I haven't looked at the web page.  I trust it will answer your
questions.  If not, get back to me.  There's an ftp'able version,
mailing list, etc.

I haven't installed it yet, but it looks pretty interesting.

../Dave

Plan 9 encumbrance

[arnold]

Thanks for the pointer.

Arnold

Plan 9 encumbrance

[arnold]

Thanks for the pointer

Arnold

Plan 9 encumbrance

[Alistair]

> Can you send some pointers to vsta? I've never heard of it ...

ftp://ftp.cisco.com/vandys/vsta

Regards,
Alistair
--
Alistair G. Crooks (agc@uts.amdahl.com)			   +44 125 234 6377
Amdahl European HQ, Dogmersfield Park, Hartley Wintney, Hants RG27 8TE, UK.

Plan 9 encumbrance

[Andi]

In message <m0ryrgm-00013uC@skeeve.atl.ga.us> you wrote:

>Can you send some pointers to vsta? I've never heard of it ...
Look at ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/embedded/vsta.

-Andi

Plan 9 encumbrance

[Dave]

dmr@plan9.att.com writes:
> The terms of the new Plan 9 distribution will be much more liberal
[... and look completely reasonable ]

> 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.
> 
> 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.

My question is: If I get and read and enjoy your distribution, and
then decide I want to write a commercial equivalent of some part of
Plan 9 (say my own implementation of Alef to run under Windows-NT --
don't worry, I already went and washed my mouth out), what will AT&T
and/or its lawyers say about it?  Or I think I see how to build the
kernel better?  As an OS researcher, this is a *very* relevant
question for me.  While the USL silliness was going on I was thanking
my lucky stars that I'd never looked at any Unix system code.

What about the authors of vsta (a plan-9 inspired system about to
release version 1.4)?  Must they *not* look at the plan-9 code?  They
currently don't use exactly the message format that plan-9
does... what if they change to use the right one?

Very much looking forward to the release... if I can look at it.
../Dave

Plan 9 encumbrance

[dmr]

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