From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2020 07:19:16 -0800 Subject: [COFF] Standing on the shoulders of giants, free or not In-Reply-To: References: <20200218225824.GB152025@mit.edu> <20200219015446.GC30841@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <20200219151916.GA12990@mcvoy.com> Warner is spot on. I was a little late to the party so I didn't even realize there was a club at the time, I just knew that it was hard to get to the source. Looking back, I can see there was a club and I was not in it, I was a little late, I sort of clawed my way in a bit but I was definitely not part of the club. I'm annoyed by that because not being part of it held me back a bit. So yeah, very different memories depending on where you were. Warner nailed it. On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 11:11:29PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote: > On Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:28 PM Clem Cole wrote: > > > I'm not 100% sure why I'm arguing other than I feel this is so wrong and > > so disingenuous to those that came before. > > > > I think the difference is whether you were in the club or not. If you were > inside and read in, there was a vibe that was very much like open source is > today. If you read the old Australian Unix User Group newsletters, you have > window into this time... but with a weird "papers please" to prove you were > in the club. People passed things around in many of the same ways. It was > cool and different than before. And people recall this fondly. Network > Unix, for example, dominated the ARPANET from 75 to 78... and it was pure > sharing... with a catch. > > Now, if you weren't in the club, or recall a time when you were excluded, > you'd have a very different remembrance. The model was better than what > came before, but not yet to where it needed to be. > > The Unix Wars, imho, shot that all to shit. It set the stage for the > revolutions that happened. > > I disagree the GPL was all that. It didn't force people to really do the > right thing... I have had dozens of boards that run Linux but no source. > The manufacturer doesn't care or has gone out of business. People only > comply because they think it is in their best interest. But they do it for > BSD too... and just because it is free doesn't make it good.. linux has a > dozen Wifi stacks... > > It's no wonder people have divergent interpretations of how we got here. > What myth do you but into? That will determine if you look at things one > way or another... > > Warner > > But, you have to decide that having access to all your sources for your > > system is your measure of 'success.' My value of success is no more VMS, > > Kronos, or VM/CMS or the like. I will accept Larry's position that he had > > many roadblocks that were often silly. But I really don't think my world > > was as 'charmed' as he claims and his was quite as bad as his might think > > you look at it. > > > > That said, we have deviated from what it means to be "open." What I'm > > hearing from Ted and Larry that they think open can only mean stallman's > > definition. I have said, that is not, was not the original definition, nor > > is it the only case and that the UNIX technology itself was really not as > > tied up as he claims. I think Larry did have access to sources (maybe not > > at his University), but like so many of us, once he got to a place that had > > them (like SGI or Sun). My point is that besides being to read about it in > > books and papers, getting access to the source from AT&T or UCB was really > > the norm and stating otherwise is disingenuous and trying to rewrite > > history a bit. > > > > A point Ted has made and I accept is by the time of the UNIX Wars, the old > > proprietary folks were trying to keep their own versions of UNIX 'secret' > > and to use Larry terms those roadblocks to >>there<< code was real. But > > the truth is that the AT&T codebase (while getting more and more expensive > > as the HW dropped in cost), was always available, and people both > > commercial and research had it. > > > > The problem was that as hardware cost dropped, more and more people wanted > > the sources too and that were the I think the difference in the success > > metrics come. > > > > Certainly, for us that lived in a 'pre-UNIX' world, UNIX was a huge > > success. It did what we wanted -- it displaced the proprietary systems. > > And in the end, the UNIX ideas and UNIX technologies live today - because > > they were open and available to everyone. It does not matter if it was > > GPL'ed or otherwise. > > > > In the end, what matters to me is the ideas, the real intellectual > > property NOT the source that implements it. This has been proven within > > the UNIX community too many times. It has been re-engineered so many times > > over. Just like Fortran lives today, although it's different from what I > > learned in the 1960s. It's still Fortran. Unix is different from what I > > saw in the early 1970s, but its still Unix. > > > > And that is because the *ideas that makeup what we call UNIX ARE open* > > and the people looked at the sources, looked at the papers, talked to each > > other and the community built on it. > > > > It looks like a duck. It quacks like a duck and even tastes like duck > > (mostly) when you inside. It's a duck. > > _______________________________________________ > > COFF mailing list > > COFF at minnie.tuhs.org > > https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff > > -- --- Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm