Re: [9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

Re: [9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

[rob pike]

	I was disappointed to find no sources for a Sparc kernel.

We don't have any modern Sparcs around here, so the old Sparc
kernel was not kept up to date; the only thing we have is five
years old.  More important, we negotiated with Sun back in 1994
to be able to release those sources under the old license terms.
We'd need to renegotiate to release them under the new terms,
and that's always a lot more work than it seems it should be.
(Releasing OS sources gives away details of the hardware.)
Given that the sources are out of date and for obsolete hardware,
it doesn't seem worthwhile.  If someone can get permission from
Sun and promises to update the kernel, I'll let them have the
source.

-rob

Re: [9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

[Digby Tarvin]

> 	I was disappointed to find no sources for a Sparc kernel.
>
> We don't have any modern Sparcs around here, so the old Sparc
> kernel was not kept up to date; the only thing we have is five
> years old.  More important, we negotiated with Sun back in 1994
> to be able to release those sources under the old license terms.
> We'd need to renegotiate to release them under the new terms,
> and that's always a lot more work than it seems it should be.
> (Releasing OS sources gives away details of the hardware.)
> Given that the sources are out of date and for obsolete hardware,
> it doesn't seem worthwhile.  If someone can get permission from
> Sun and promises to update the kernel, I'll let them have the
> source.
>
I too would be disappointed to lose the ability to utilize my old
Sparc hardware. I had taken it for granted that that would be
there in the new release :-(

I take it the source you refer to here just the version I already have
with the 1995 release ?

Is there anything in there that is not already public knowledge
by virtue of the Sparc version of Linux or NetBSD? Or would support need to
be re-developed from scratch by someone who had not signed a
non-disclosure with Sun before you would be free to distribute?

Havn't had a chance to look at the source for the new release
yet (still have to get hold of a free PC with the right hardware so I can
do the cross compiling), but I was wondering how much the driver level
stuff has changed. Is there a lot of work involved in moving support
for an architecture/machine from 2nd and incorporating it into
the 3rd release system?

Regards,
DigbyT
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

Re: [9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

[rob pike]

	P.S. You didn't mention - if suitable approval was received from
	Sun, would there be a more recent code base to start from than the
	1995 CD?

Not significantly more recent.

Re: [9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

[rob pike]

	Is there anything in there that is not already public knowledge
	by virtue of the Sparc version of Linux or NetBSD? Or would support need to
	be re-developed from scratch by someone who had not signed a
	non-disclosure with Sun before you would be free to distribute?

I don't know, but it's not my judgement to make anyway.
Sun lawyers have to make it.

	Is there a lot of work involved in moving support
	for an architecture/machine from 2nd and incorporating it into
	the 3rd release system?

Speaking for graphics, the subsystem I know best, there's a lot of
details but probably nothing prohibitive.  I suspect the story is true
for the other components too.

-rob

Re: [9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

[Digby Tarvin]

> 	Is there anything in there that is not already public knowledge
> 	by virtue of the Sparc version of Linux or NetBSD? Or would support need to
> 	be re-developed from scratch by someone who had not signed a
> 	non-disclosure with Sun before you would be free to distribute?
>
> I don't know, but it's not my judgement to make anyway.
> Sun lawyers have to make it.

Fair enough. I suppose if wrestling with legal issues was fun we
would all be lawyers instead of programmers :-)

Hopefully Sun will be receptive to the idea if approached.
They do at least seem to be open source friendly now, and if
they have any sense will realise that keeping programming
details of their hardware secret will not help the popularity
of their machines....

> 	for an architecture/machine from 2nd and incorporating it into
> 	the 3rd release system?
>
> Speaking for graphics, the subsystem I know best, there's a lot of
> details but probably nothing prohibitive.  I suspect the story is true
> for the other components too.
>
I guess if I start with a CPU server, there shouldn't be much that
needs to be gotten going initially. Then maybe a SCSI driver to
make a file server. The graphics hardware would probably be what I
know least about...

Hopefully the wider accessibility of this release will result in
a much broader range of supported hardware.

Regards,
DigbyT

P.S. You didn't mention - if suitable approval was received from
Sun, would there be a more recent code base to start from than the
1995 CD?
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

[9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

[Jean Mehat]

I was disappointed to find no sources for a Sparc kernel. I had a
small stack of IPX and thought that they would make nice servers, at
least to boot the network installation without vga problems.

[9fans] SPARC Port of v3?

[Stephen Wynne]

Is any work outside the Labs planned for a SPARC kernel?