[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[G.David]

>From: Richard Uhtenwoldt <roo@river.org> (replace roo with ru)
>G. David Butler writes:
>>I used to provide a distribution set, but I don't any longer.
>>If you want to know why we (anybody with the shrink-wrap
>>license) can NOT, see http://www.dbSystems.com
>
>okay, I read that last Web page, and the shrinkwrap license.
>seems to me that you could distribute a diff against the
>standard distribution set.  (the xdelta program, an alternative
>to "diff" and "patch", can deal gracefully with binary files.)

Since making any source available in a public forum is
strictly prohibited, so would a binary "diff".

[The idea that a boodle is so useless to anybody without
the source was promoted by the developers to allow some
freedom, but I'm sure the attorneys at Lucent were not
consulted.  One could argue that since they (the
developers acting as officials of Lucent) have
relinquished their rights of redistribution so we should
take advantage of it.  I would NOT want to be sitting
in a court room trying to make that argument!]

Since Lucent is not bound by the shrink-wrap license, they can
do whatever they want with their property including publishing
the documents and updates on their web site plan9.bell-labs.com.

We, on the other hand, are bound by:

"Except as described in this section, you may not USE, copy, or
TRANSFER the software, in SOURCE or in OBJECT form, or any
MODIFICATION or DERIVATIVE work thereof, in whole or IN PART
to any THIRD party."

except if we have a way of determining that someone else has
purchased the source code then:

"You may transmit derived or modified portions of this software
specifically to other licensees of AT&T (sic) who are bound
by the terms of this Agreement..."

I guess I should find a way (the xor trick, perhaps) to encrypt
the multi-ethernet changes on my site to be fully complient.

David Butler
gdb@dbSystems.com

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[forsyth]

>>I hope you have different lawyers now, these didn't have a sense
>>of humor.  ftp://ftp.bsdi.com/bsdi/info/usl

the lawyers weren't responsible for the nonsense; they got involved much
later. i'd say that both sides were on thin ice to some extent, although
i'd say that USL's was thinner than UCB's.   i suspect the problem at heart
was that USL had no idea any longer which bits were theirs,
that's to say non-trivial and derived from Unix code,
probably because they had few people on hand that knew
the code and its history.  (equally likely, the people were there
but they were not the ones that management asked!)
that was made worse when, during conversion
of some BSD code to STREAMS, someone slapped AT&T/USL
copyrights on networking code that undoubtedly was written
by UCB (and in violation of their copyright).

note that it was a lawyer (the judge) who produced
a good summary of the problem, and what seemed
to me to be a remarkably sound resolution.  i remember being
quite impressed: i kept a copy of his statement
for some years following, as a superb example of its kind.

>I still remember wondering if I could work in the computer field
>any more because I had seen UNIX source code.  That was Not Funny.

i suppose i might have wondered if i could clone Unix
legally because i had seen Unix source code, but i don't
think i'd have ruled out further work in computing,
especially if i was planning on doing original work.

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[G.David]

>From: dmr@plan9.bell-labs.com
>
>About the more general question of distributing updates and whatnot--
>The wording was intended to encourage exchange of information,
>and the lawyers were indeed consulted.  And in fact none of the
>trading and boodling on anyone's part has remotely reached
>the lawyers' radar.

I hope you have different lawyers now, these didn't have a sense
of humor.  ftp://ftp.bsdi.com/bsdi/info/usl

I still remember wondering if I could work in the computer field
any more because I had seen UNIX source code.  That was Not Funny.

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[dmr]

David Butler quoted the current license--

 "You may transmit derived or modified portions of this software
  specifically to other licensees of AT&T (sic) who are bound
  by the terms of this Agreement..."

About the "(sic)"-- I just changed the (online) shrinkwrap form
to substitute Lucent for AT&T and also let someone with a law degree
in the company know about this.  I'll change it again as appropriate.

About the more general question of distributing updates and whatnot--
The wording was intended to encourage exchange of information,
and the lawyers were indeed consulted.  And in fact none of the
trading and boodling on anyone's part has remotely reached
the lawyers' radar.

	Dennis

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[Jochen_Hayek]

>>>>> "JAR" == James A Robinson <jimr@aubrey.stanford.EDU> writes:

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 18:08:55 GMT, Jochen_Hayek@acm.org
<Jochen_Hayek@acm.org> wrote:

    >> I trashed the 5 GB disk of a PC close to my desk
    >> to install plan9 on it.
    >> I chose to install DOS 6.2 on a 39 MB FAT partition for `bootstrapping'.

    JAR> I had similar problems with a 4Gb disk. It ended up being the
    JAR> fact that those Plan 9 disks don't handle disks over 2 gigs
    JAR> very well.  Richard Miller was kind enough to post a
    JAR> replacement b.com, 9dos, and 9pcdisk for handling >2Gb disks.

But where would I copy 9pcdisk to.
And it wouldn't fit on disk1 either.

    JAR> You should check www.hamnavoe.demon.co.uk to see if it is
    JAR> still there.

    JAR> I ended up just getting a 2 Gb IDE, and that worked fine.

Maybe I make that disk appear as 2GB in the BIOS,
before I get another disk.

    JAR> Jim

Jochen

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[Richard]

G. David Butler writes:
>I used to provide a distribution set, but I don't any longer.
>If you want to know why we (anybody with the shrink-wrap
>license) can NOT, see http://www.dbSystems.com

okay, I read that last Web page, and the shrinkwrap license.
seems to me that you could distribute a diff against the
standard distribution set.  (the xdelta program, an alternative
to "diff" and "patch", can deal gracefully with binary files.)

-- 
to mail me, replace "roo" with "ru".

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[G.David]

>There are fixed versions of the installation discs around I think, perhaps
>someone could step forward and help this chappie out. Thanks.

I used to provide a distribution set, but I don't any longer.
If you want to know why we (anybody with the shrink-wrap
license) can NOT, see http://www.dbSystems.com

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[jmk]

	Jochen_Hayek@acm.org:
	>I downloaded those files from ftp://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/pcdist .

	>I trashed the 5 GB disk of a PC close to my desk
	>to install plan9 on it.

...and it failed miserably.

If it's not already in the FAQ it should be mentioned that the 4-floppy
distribution will not install on an [E]IDE disc >4GB. I've ammended the
README in the distribution directory.
There are fixed versions of the installation discs around I think, perhaps
someone could step forward and help this chappie out. Thanks.

--jim

[9fans] Re: failed installation of the 3 diskette system

[James]

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998 18:08:55 GMT, Jochen_Hayek@acm.org
<Jochen_Hayek@acm.org> wrote:
>I trashed the 5 GB disk of a PC close to my desk
>to install plan9 on it.
>I chose to install DOS 6.2 on a 39 MB FAT partition for `bootstrapping'.

I had similar problems with a 4Gb disk. It ended up being the fact that 
those Plan 9 disks don't handle disks over 2 gigs very well.  Richard
Miller was kind enough to post a replacement b.com, 9dos, and 9pcdisk 
for handling >2Gb disks. You should check www.hamnavoe.demon.co.uk to
see if it is still there. I ended up just getting a 2 Gb IDE, and that
worked fine.


Jim