From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 63d1ef6a for ; Tue, 18 Feb 2020 20:23:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 990249D538; Wed, 19 Feb 2020 06:23:42 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0CF89D51C; Wed, 19 Feb 2020 06:23:09 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E5E769D51C; Wed, 19 Feb 2020 06:23:05 +1000 (AEST) Received: from central.weird.com (unknown [198.96.117.51]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E5A329D51B for ; Wed, 19 Feb 2020 06:23:04 +1000 (AEST) Received: from (invalid client hostname: bind: DNS error: DNS lookup for A for 'more.local': Unknown host)more.local ((no PTR matching greeting name)S01060026bb6c284e.ok.shawcable.net[24.71.254.93] port=32995) by central.weird.com([198.96.117.51] port=587) via TCP with esmtp (6389 bytes) (sender: ) (ident using UNIX) id for ; Tue, 18 Feb 2020 15:22:57 -0500 (EST) (Smail-3.2.0.122-Pre 2005-Nov-17 #77 built 2019-Dec-29) Received: from (invalid client hostname: the DNS A record (with the targegt address [10.0.1.129]) for the hostname 'more.local' does not match the expected address [10.0.1.129])more.local ((no PTR matching greeting name)future.local[10.0.1.133] port=51097) by more.local([10.0.1.129] port=25) via TCP with esmtp (5879 bytes) (sender: ) id for ; Tue, 18 Feb 2020 12:22:57 -0800 (PST) (Smail-3.2.0.122-Pre 2005-Nov-17 #1 built 2015-Feb-17) Message-Id: Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 12:22:56 -0800 From: "Greg A. Woods" To: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list In-Reply-To: References: <202002171520.01HFKqKi026749@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> <4d252035b323b7583c5760c952d1982c@firemail.de> <202002171839.01HId8FT1358073@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <202002180017.01I0HI0I1415945@darkstar.fourwinds.com> User-Agent: Wanderlust/2.15.9 (Almost Unreal) SEMI-EPG/1.14.7 (Harue) FLIM/1.14.9 (=?ISO-8859-4?Q?Goj=F2?=) APEL/10.8 EasyPG/1.0.0 Emacs/25.3 (x86_64--netbsd) MULE/6.0 (HANACHIRUSATO) X-Face: ; j3Eth2XV8h1Yfu*uL{<:dQ$#E[DB0gemGZJ"J#4fH*][ lz; @-iwMv_u\6uIEKR0KY"=MzoQH#CrqBN`nG_5B@rrM8,f~Gr&h5a\= List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Reply-To: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" --pgp-sign-Multipart_Tue_Feb_18_12:22:40_2020-1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII At Tue, 18 Feb 2020 10:11:45 -0500, Clem Cole wrote: Subject: Re: [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark > > On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 2:40 AM Greg A. Woods wrote: > > > > I.e. there was no open-source [nt]roff compatible program at the time, > > and the mainly available proprietary one produced (for quality printing > > purposes) only very convoluted hard-coded output for a quite esoteric > > and rare piece of equipment. AT&T's public attempt to solve this > > (ditroff) just added more cost and arguably less availability. > > > ditroff was always >>open source<< and any licensee could get it and see > it. The problem you are suggesting is that it was not >>free<< i.e. FOSS. Indeed. I was going to use the word "freeware", but it seems to have gone out of common use in favour of the now more common "open-source", as in https://opensource.org/ At the times I referred to the lack of freely available AT&T source code was extremely limiting in how people viewed the availability of such "add-on" tools for Unix -- including the C compiler! AT&T's break-up of the "Unix" distribution into separately licensed chunks was, from my perspective, one of the main driving forces behind the creation and adoption of so many clones and alternatives -- no matter how far they strayed from the original Unix philosophy. > For folks running binary only systems from Masscomp/Sun/DEC/HP/IBM and the > like, it is possible it was different. It was _very_ different. If you weren't out in the trenches of end-user Unix-based systems at the time it may not have been as obvious as to just how restrictive it was to have proprietary fee-based licensing of such add-on software. Most end-users couldn't even pay their vendors for ditroff -- their vendors didn't want to have to license it from AT&T, even when they had advocates inside the companies (e.g. I did some work supporting software for a couple such vendors and was never able to convince them). Some, as you mention, were all-in, but it wasn't until UNIX System V Release 4 became more widely available that systems based on it were more likely to have ditroff, and sometimes (though much more rarely) the "new" dpost post-processor was also included. I don't know if there were different licensing terms for SysVr4 or not. Don't get me started on how hard it also was to get some end users to buy a C compiler too. For the entire decade of the 1990s I was still one of the only people I knew (outside of those I knew in AT&T Canada and their customers) who owned a system that included ditroff and dpost and could print directly to a PostScript laser printer -- and that's despite living in the same city where SoftQuad was re-licensing ditroff and their variant of dpost to quite a wide variety of users. This was my situation because I had chosen to buy a used AT&T 3B2. Without that I'd have been without ditroff -- I would have been very lucky if I had v7 troff binaries so that I could use Chris' PSroff. These days of course there's the full ditroff source release in the Heirloom Documentation Tools collection. I'd like to see it used to replace Groff in some places, but so far I've been less than successful -- that cart seems to have rolled off the road into the ditch, hopefully without losing the horse though. -- Greg A. Woods Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack Planix, Inc. Avoncote Farms --pgp-sign-Multipart_Tue_Feb_18_12:22:40_2020-1 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: OpenPGP Digital Signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iF0EABECAB0WIQTWEnAIIlcZX4oAawJie18UwlnHhQUCXkxHlAAKCRBie18UwlnH hZrgAJ96w24Gd1qFlmyhzP4YmOSWeIsxTQCgupZu8boRDkLgcibBSgH7PmVMSEk= =t/Yr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --pgp-sign-Multipart_Tue_Feb_18_12:22:40_2020-1--