kendall@wjh12.UUCP (Sam Kendall) (10/20/83)
It seems wasteful to me for so many people to spend their time duplicating
existing work, as they would if they wrote GNU, particularly in a field
with so much money floating around. Also, the operating system and standard
utilities themselves are not so expensive, at least from UniSoft or someone
like that; another big problem is the price of other software, applications
packages and such, which are not part of any UNIX distribution. For GNU to
handle those, it would have to be an ongoing effort which would duplicate
any piece of commercial software as soon as it comes out. Would you want to
work on such an effort? I wouldn't.
My only alternative suggestion is to form a software co-op, at least among
academic computer sites, which would get quantity discounts for software.
I have no idea of whether this is feasable. Probably not.
Sam Kendall {allegra,ihnp4}!wjh12!kendall
Delft Consulting Corp. decvax!genrad!wjh12!kendallwls@astrovax.UUCP (10/21/83)
For about $900 an educational institution can get a source license for 4.x BSD
on the VAX. I am not sure now but when I checked a year ago the USG versions
were of the same order. The Unix ports to microprocessors (Unisoft, for
example) are all binary licenses, for source one pays through the nose. I am
unhappy about this situation and would support an effort like GNU to bring
source back to these microprocessors.
Bill Sebok Princeton Univ. Astrophysics
{allegra,akgua,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno}!astrovax!wlsgwyn%brl-vld@sri-unix.UUCP (10/22/83)
From: Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn@brl-vld> The packaged microprocessor systems are supplied through OEMs. There are several reasons why they do not and should not supply cheap sources to customers. You could always get an educational UNIX license (from WECo, the only place you CAN get a UNIX license from) for your microprocessor. Most of the utility-level sources (but not the compiler or kernel) would work on your machine. (WECo seems willing to license UNIX on any CPU, not just those for which they supply tapes.)