From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: pepe@naleco.com (Josh Good) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2017 00:55:25 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] System Economics (was is Linux "officially branded UNIX") In-Reply-To: References: <20170314224547.GB14659@naleco.com> <20170315192815.GA15120@naleco.com> Message-ID: <20170315235525.GC15120@naleco.com> On 2017 Mar 15, 15:45, Clem Cole wrote: > > SVR4 (aka UnixWare) was available for source - the problem is many people > did like the price to see it. It was $100K. But the source was available > it was open and many, many of people with PC and had access to it, wrote > drivers for it etc. There were books published about it. It was hardly > secret. Nobody says UNIX source code was "secret". It just was not open after UNIX began to be directly sold by AT&T post Bell-breakage. If UNIX source code was "open" at $100K, then Windows NT source code can also be seen as open if you have enough money to buy Microsoft. > Just saying please don't say UNIX was not Open. It was. Unix was not > Free. I beg to differ. UNIX stopped being open when the Lion's book could not be legally sold anymore at bookstores. That happened even earlier than System V, it happened when AT&T released V7. The reason that AT&T stated was that they wanted to keep "UNIX source code" as a "trade secret". So this begs the question: how can something, anything, be at the same time "open" and a "trade secret"? No doubt some argumentation can be concocted to marry both concepts, but I have that feeling it's going to be a hard one to swallow. To me, open means libre access, because if there is no libre access, then it is what is known as closed. Please note that libre access --when applied to source code-- does not necessarily mean "up for grabs and redistribution" - it just means libre access to random eyeballs in meatspace. -- Josh Good