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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 24092 invoked from network); 16 Jul 2021 02:15:26 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 16 Jul 2021 02:15:26 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 111619C82F; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:15:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F7479C7F1; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:15:04 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=fail reason="signature verification failed" (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=algebras-org.20150623.gappssmtp.com header.i=@algebras-org.20150623.gappssmtp.com header.b="g9aUuRIK"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 6835F9C7F1; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:15:01 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lj1-f174.google.com (mail-lj1-f174.google.com [209.85.208.174]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 411969C7F0 for ; Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:14:56 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lj1-f174.google.com with SMTP id u25so11831192ljj.11 for ; Thu, 15 Jul 2021 19:14:56 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=algebras-org.20150623.gappssmtp.com; s=20150623; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=Xp8TIuN5d41xVI19jQ7Pc9MslNTgcKlyR4oNoJvj0Jk=; b=g9aUuRIKIo0Mxg5GgtjLZptb6gTEBYu2kT9A2BpAwdxlH/XchtNucnACxEqFROXbKs +ipCwFWkh7755a0M87UZG1KnMkJxaTgkykKRiBr0UeC7u+f8ZY7VvpVfIpzY8M/9x37H RtdvGUn7bQTQ8ao9EAUtCbI5gtc6I7navgV2dOcndN8AHXikJBpZe5jWCTSYZaysQasI YsXz512KiaJEi3UxinAKIOUZ1bYVL740f1939Vq7o3zidfyr+dI6VZT6VD7vEdFT0QYh 9lCB41cCN3SE6tCg7YN4pFeTj1nVKT9QeUr3GMOgtIYlHZv3kt4TTVs/Mpd/yPbFrmyN RIYg== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=Xp8TIuN5d41xVI19jQ7Pc9MslNTgcKlyR4oNoJvj0Jk=; b=JJ0YtANPmLr7KQkUBgRAoQEHyG4ePjzLBWolVgxWmXuqct3tUl9tUbu5PBW5VKcmoS syXysbBTfVFYse9/vixWNBOD8IohrlT7e0ObDWCnfNINOLDyhosHSsLrYs0BA3S774+5 IGX53lbDYcu5XqQiH2rujmPpOXYauWsY5OS8OKOISRt8QsAGLXuIqhP5eix534IYAtnm iiQO9K0pD3KNttrU1DQ77qrraf38WbGl3OAMMNVnsVZJZ0a8pPVMnkZIsD4DrITPxd8v bYj8cmh7Fpu68L2PWjO8Xge+h1gviFqRtn3dA6Bb8rcyneOQNXVPeK37ye5ma4lboT1y QijQ== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM532sMcljbn2xjeLPyKzWcu7+zBpehflkmFYyybnuo9x5+vCEB1Yc ODtP7A2FLzftuU/DMnKJc8aTIU56rFN2nCDP5WvYyg== X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJz/TlKktmI5i31UV5F+cl5SjunCE/bAHBDD4jXgGuF/A0wOAGVNaGhxox4PI7AiKLu8o3r56i6/bWzakBIxNXw= X-Received: by 2002:a2e:720f:: with SMTP id n15mr2304293ljc.333.1626401694559; Thu, 15 Jul 2021 19:14:54 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: George Michaelson Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:14:43 +1000 Message-ID: To: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Subject: Re: [TUHS] [COFF] 386BSD released X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: Computer Old Farts Followers , TUHS main list , Douglas McIlroy Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" I was part of a discussion about a bug in the DECUS tape in Leeds uni, in '82-84 window. I was a very small part I might add, not the principal. I can't remember the package. It was probably trivia, like walking a specific SYS$SYSTEM value in a way which was dangerous or encoded assumptions about device:directory:user models in VMS. The feedback I got from this process was "thanks, we'll think about it" was closure, for those days. We'd been pretty specific about a fix. I got the sense the tape was an annual affair. And the likelihood of our "patch" being both accepted, and added to the next round of the tape was low-to-zero because everyone wanted "moar" and so people focussed on adding things, not fixing things. The exception here was compilers: people always want bugs fixed in a compiler. Or the NAG library, but both compilers (language spec) and NAG (strict maths formalisms about correctness) had policed mechanisms to accept user input, validate, run through a remorselessly tight compliance check, and emit, if it survived. A bug in the implementation of MUD for dec-10? ok, so the word "potato" is misspelled on one screen. Move on. On Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 11:59 AM Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 04:30:15PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote: > > > > Ted - that *is what* Doug pointed out!!! They did not create anything that > > was new. SHARED / DECUS / USENIX and the like were providing that exact > > same function starting in the late 1950s!!! Companies and Universities all > > pooled their resources to make things better and to get new and improved > > solutions. Sometimes they started with things that come from the > > original OEM. Also often they created their own technology and made it > > available to everyone. Sometime they combine both. And it was a > > 'bazaar where everyone had access and you chose to use it to not. Sounds > > pretty familiar, BTW. > > I remember looking at the DECUS program catalog for the PDP-8, and I > seem to recall that for the most part, individuals were sharing their > programs with others. In that way, it wasn't all that different from > say, CPM/UG, and HUG (Heathkit Users Group). But the thing is, for > the most part, it was a single author sharing individual programs, and > often changes were not accepted back. > > Consider the history of Bill Jolitz and 386BSD, and the collection of > patches that eventuallya became NetBSD and FreeBSD, which was formed > because they were frustrated that they couldn't get their patch sets > back into Jolitz's code base. Technology plays a part, in that it > enables the change. But it's not just about technology. There is > also a very strong social component. Even when you were richly > interconnected at the network level, this does not guarantee that will > be willing to be richly interconnected in terms of accepting patch > sets from people who you may not know across the Internet, into *your* > program, for which you are the author and high priest. > > I don't remember the exact date, but it would have been in the early > 90's, when at the time I was already contributing patches to Linux, > and where ftp and e-mail and applying patches via context diffs was > very much available. At that time, we were interested in getting > support for MIT Project Athena's Hesiod extenstions into the BIND > distributions (we had just been carrying patches against BIND for many > years). > > In order to get those patches integrated, Paul Vixie invited me to his > house in Redwood City, and so I flew from Boston to San Francisco, > carrying my Linux laptop with the BIND patches, and we got the patches > integrated into master BIND sources. Paul was a gracious host, and it > was lovely that I got to spend some time with him. But it was > interesting that my physical presence was needed, or at least highly > useful, in terms of getting those patches into BIND. Requiring > physical presence to get patches integrated.... doesn't scale. > > And so it wasn't a matter of technology, since the technology for > Linus, who didn't know me from Adam in 1991, to accept patches from me > implementing BSD Job Control, was certainly available when I was > working with Paul to get the Hesiod changes integrated into BIND. But > like with Jolitz and 386BSD, it's a mindset thing, not just technology. > > I also want to emphasize again, the question of business model is also > something which I think is different, and *important*. It's one thing > for Academics and Researchers to be willing to give changes away to > anyone who wants. It's quite another for a company to give away their > intellectual property in such a way that it can actually be used by > their competitors, either because that's the social convention, or > because it's enforced by the license. Was the practices we use today > for Linux built on the traditions of comp.sources.unix, and BSD, and > AT&T Research, and IBM making sources available for System/360, yadda, > yadda, yadda? Of course! I'm not denying that. > > But at the same time, to claim that nothing is new under the Sun, and > *all* of this had been done decades earlier, is also not the whole > story. And to call IBM releasing System/360, when they retained > control of the license, and wasn't accepting any changes back, and > *darned* well would have sued anyone trying to use that code on > non-IBM computers into a smoking crater, as "Open Source" can be > highly misleading, because that is not what most people associate with > the term "Open Source" today. > > And if we take a look at what AT&T Lawyers did with the Unix source > code, at some point, it most *defintely* was the antithesis of "Open > Source". Which would lead me to assert that Unix was never really > released under what today we would call, "Open Source". > > Cheers, > > - Ted