[TUHS] Re: PWB 1.0 Distro and Licensing Timeframe

[Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>]

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On Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 4:12 AM Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 10, 2023 at 01:24:26PM -0800, Warner Losh wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 10, 2023, 2:07 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The other really important piece is that the V7 redistribution license
> was
> > > the first that allowed vendors to ship binaries, and this is all
> pre-Judge
> > > Green.    The vendors started the negotiation for the replacement of
> the V7
> > > license almost at day one [December 1979 was the first meeting at
> Ricki's
> > > Hyatt - which I have described earlier].
> > >
> >
> > How did The Wollongong Group sell/send out the Interdata/Harris Unix
> Level
> > 6 binaries then? Or did they get some kind of special since they bought
> the
> > rights from Wollongong University?
>
> That was commercially sold as a v7 port (in 1980) according to
> Juris Reinfelds in
> tuhs/Distributions/Other/Interdata/uow103747.pdf
> "Price includes a binary license"
> https://archive.org/details/login_october-1980/page/11/mode/2up


They also sold the v6 port. They were quite proud of that legacy when I
worked
there in 1989. Of course, this was the marketing department, and they never
lie or exaggerate, right? I'm guessing now they were counting the original
tapes
that the University had sent out... I'm suddenly doubting the lore that I've
known as a fact for a long time... I have references to Wollongong Unix,
Level 6
in my Lillihammer talk, which I had seen when I worked there, but the only
references I can find to that are about the University version, not the TWG
version now that I'm looking again for it.

However, the earliest documentation that I could find is for the 7th
edition, though.
https://kyber.io/rawvids/uow103747_uow103747.pdf in the frustrations
section on
the 4th page (which looks to be the same thing that is in TUHS).

Another location is page 37 of
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V03.2.pdf
which talks about EDITION VII and EDITION VII WORKBENCH on WOLLONGONG
GROUP letterhead (the same letterhead I got my TWG job offer on,
interestingly
enough). This is the first mention of TWG in the AUUGN. Interesting too was
that TWG claimed 'EDITION VII' as a trademark...

Human Computing Resources (HCR), were somewhat related to the University
> of Toronto's Dynamic Graphics Project.  HCR first sold Xenix and later
> UNITY?  Richard Miller worked at HCR and was involved with their port to
> the NS16032 after the Interdata port
>
> https://archive.org/details/1983-proceedings-unicom-san-diego/page/269/mode/2up
>

Yes. He was quite the prolific porter...


> ISC were selling products based on v6 and PWB in 1977:
> "By June he had formed Interactive Systems Corp. in Santa Monica,
> Calif., and had a license from Bell Labs to market Unix-based systems.
> ...
> The company calls its enhanced Unix systems Interactive System/One.
> Interactive System/Two is coming along. It too is based on a Bell Labs
> development.  This one, called Programmers Workbench (PWB), uses Unix
> and makes it possible to develop software for large scale computers
> using minis. Interactive has a license from Bell for PWB, similar to
> the one it holds for Unix."
> Datamation, November 1977, pg 189
>
> https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_datamation_42830601/page/n179/mode/2up


That's a nice find... It doesn't say v6 or 6th Edition, nor which version
of pwb,
but in 1977 it must be V6 or earlier.

Warner

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