[TUHS] Prime Time Freeware

[TUHS] Prime Time Freeware

[Chris Hanson]

Has anyone written down the story of Prime Time Freeware or archived the various distributions? Is there even a complete listing of what they distributed?

I’ve imaged my own stuff (PTF AI 1-1, PTF SDK for UnixWare 1-1, PTF Tools & Toys for UnixWare 1-1) but I’d really like to find the original PTF 1-1 and things like it.

  — Chris

Re: [TUHS] Prime Time Freeware

[Nemo Nusquam]

On 14/02/2021 16:05, Chris Hanson wrote:
> Has anyone written down the story of Prime Time Freeware or archived the various distributions? Is there even a complete listing of what they distributed?
Rich Morin is on this list.

N.

Re: [TUHS] Prime Time Freeware

[Kenneth Goodwin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 433 bytes --]

I believe I may still have the cdroms somewhere around. I will try to track
them down.  Still unpacking from a move.

On Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 5:04 PM Nemo Nusquam <cym224@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 14/02/2021 16:05, Chris Hanson wrote:
> > Has anyone written down the story of Prime Time Freeware or archived the
> various distributions? Is there even a complete listing of what they
> distributed?
> Rich Morin is on this list.
>
> N.
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 706 bytes --]

Re: [TUHS] Prime Time Freeware

[Chris Hanson]

On Feb 14, 2021, at 2:04 PM, Nemo Nusquam <cym224@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 14/02/2021 16:05, Chris Hanson wrote:
>> Has anyone written down the story of Prime Time Freeware or archived the various distributions? Is there even a complete listing of what they distributed?
> Rich Morin is on this list.

Indeed, that's one of the reasons I thought to ask here. :)

  -- Chris

Re: [TUHS] Prime Time Freeware

[Derrik Walker v2.0]

I have the PTF 4-2 book and the two CD’s that came with it.  I found it at a local Microcenter in the Early to Mid ’90’s. 

I had ported a bunch of it MachTen. But that work, unfortunately, has been lost to time.

- Derrik 

> On Feb 14, 2021, at 4:05 PM, Chris Hanson <cmhanson@eschatologist.net> wrote:
> 
> Has anyone written down the story of Prime Time Freeware or archived the various distributions? Is there even a complete listing of what they distributed?
> 
> I’ve imaged my own stuff (PTF AI 1-1, PTF SDK for UnixWare 1-1, PTF Tools & Toys for UnixWare 1-1) but I’d really like to find the original PTF 1-1 and things like it.
> 
>  — Chris
> 

Re: [TUHS] Prime Time Freeware <- Sun User Group tapes

[John Gilmore]

Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> wrote:
> PTF was inspired, in large part, by the volunteer work that produced the
> Sun User Group (SUG) tapes.  Because most of the original volunteers had
> other fish to fry, I decided to broaden the focus and attempt a
> (somewhat) commercial venture.  PTF, for better or worse, was the
> result.
> 
> So, I should also relate some stories about running for and serving on
> the SUG board, hassling with AT&T and Sun's lawyers, assembling
> SUGtapes, etc.  My copies of the SUGtapes are (probably) long gone, but
> John Gilmore (if nobody else :-) probably has the tapes and/or their
> included bits.

While I was involved, the Sun User Group made three tapes of freely
available software, in 1985, 1987, and 1989.  The 1989 tape includes
both of the earlier ones, as well as new material.

A copy of both the 1987 tape and the 1989 tape are here:

  http://www.toad.com/SunUserGroupTape-Rel-1987.1.0.tar.gz
  http://www.toad.com/SunUserGroupTape-Rel-1989.tar
  http://www.toad.com/

I'll have to do a bit more digging to turn up more than vague memories
about our dealings with the lawyers...

	John

Re: [TUHS] Prime Time Freeware <- Sun User Group tapes

[Rich Morin]

> On Feb 16, 2021, at 11:39, John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> wrote:
> 
> ... A copy of both the 1987 tape and the 1989 tape are here:
> 
>  http://www.toad.com/SunUserGroupTape-Rel-1987.1.0.tar.gz
>  http://www.toad.com/SunUserGroupTape-Rel-1989.tar
>  http://www.toad.com/

As always, John Gilmore rocks...  (John, can you tell folks about the
history, rationale, and text of the Sun-1's PROM identification message?)

> I'll have to do a bit more digging to turn up more than vague memories
> about our dealings with the lawyers...

I have two legal war stories to relate, offhand...

# AT&T

I tried to find a way to get permission to include copies of text files
(both vanilla and modified, IIRC) that were part of the "binary" release.
(I thought it might be useful for folks to have backup and/or "improved"
versions.)  I was flatly informed that all files in a binary distribution
were, by definition, binary (not text).  So, we had nothing to discuss.
I never did manage to break through that legal stonewall.

# Sun

The other story (fortunately!) ended more successfully.  You see, Sun's
legal staff had drafted a "minimal" agreement that folks _donating_ bits
were expected to sign off on.  IIRC, it ran on for about twenty pages (!).

John and I were both appalled and tried to tell the lawyer we met with that
the authors and organizations involved wouldn't sign off on anything like
this; indeed, they wouldn't even read it.

Since John was pretty incensed, I got to play Good Cop.  IIRC, I asked John
to list the issues that he thought reasonable for the agreement to cover.
With some grumbling, he came up with a set of issues whose legalese filled
one side of a (letter-size :-) page.

I then turned to the Sun lawyer (who was actually trying to be helpful and
make things work) and asked him to tell us about any _critical_ issues John
had left out.  However, I only gave him a one-page budget.

Adding the mutually acceptable issues brought the agreement up to two pages,
which I got John (with a bit more grumbling) to accept.  The lawyer then
had the (unenviable) task of getting Sun to sign off on it.  He did, and SUG
was able to get donation sign-offs and produce a useful tape (whew!).  I'm
sure it helped that the folks doing the first tape were working at LLNL...

-r