From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 7579 invoked from network); 9 Sep 2022 00:18:19 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 9 Sep 2022 00:18:19 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A421D428B0; Fri, 9 Sep 2022 10:17:57 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id AB17F428AF for ; Fri, 9 Sep 2022 10:17:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 5055E35E61D; Thu, 8 Sep 2022 17:17:50 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2022 17:17:50 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Steve Nickolas Message-ID: <20220909001750.GW11929@mcvoy.com> References: <20220908221639.GR11929@mcvoy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Message-ID-Hash: FDIPMKKFO536IGGVIOPUORMVGHXRW3YR X-Message-ID-Hash: FDIPMKKFO536IGGVIOPUORMVGHXRW3YR X-MailFrom: lm@mcvoy.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: TUHS X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Re-implementations/Clean-Rooms et al. List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Thu, Sep 08, 2022 at 08:05:44PM -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote: > On Thu, 8 Sep 2022, Warner Losh wrote: > > >On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 5:29 PM Steve Nickolas wrote: > > > >>On Thu, 8 Sep 2022, Warner Losh wrote: > >> > >>>But it likely didn't matter, since 32v likely lost its copyright > >>>protection due to AT&T distributing too many copies without the required > >>>copyright markings. At least that was the preliminary ruling that caused > >>>the suit to be settled... AT&T didn't want it finalized, though the cat > >>>was somewhat out of the bag at this point... > >> > >>It would be nice if that were an absolute rather than a probably, because > >>then the status for 32V wouldn't be clouded. > >> > > > >It would be nice. At this late date, one wonders what would happen if it > >were litigated again... I suspect that nobody would bother given the > >small possible gain and the huge expense... But it would also reduce > >shareholder values to explicitly say there's no copyright here or to > >clarify that the ancient licenses are valid. So we're in this state where > >it's basically free and clear, treated like it's free and clear, but > >really isn't free and clear. > > > >Warner > > I'm probably the only one brazen enough to put it to the test. > > For some years, I've wanted to create a free implementation of System V, and > then move on from there. (I know there's limited utility for such a thing, > because of the BSDs.) Why? Have you booted 32V? Run in it for a while? No VM, no networking, very basic system. Other than historical, I don't understand the point. > A few things actually hinge on this. If it were considered a fact, and not > a mere opinion, that 32V was PD, then I could be sure that certain things > were safe to use, rather than having to rewrite (including some particularly > tricky stuff the BSDs never fully reimplemented, like diff(1)). I'm a source management guy, I've written a couple of systems. I live and breath diff and diff(1) is not in the slightest way hard. I wrote my own version of SCCS in a way that you could get as many different versions of the history as you wanted in one pass. That's a lot harder than diff(1). But maybe I don't understand what you think is tricky about diff, you may have some insight I'm missing, care to share?