msc@qubix.UUCP (07/18/83)
I have just been looking at the System V distribution we received
and there appears to have been a policy change with respect to
on-line documentation.
Only 3 of the system V documents are provided on the distribution
tape:
"Unix System User's Manual -- System V",
"Unix System Adminstrator's Manual -- System V"
"Unix Operating System Error Message Manual -- System V"
There are 9 other documents which are provided in printed form only.
I hope this is not the start of something bad.
Does anyone know the reason for this change?
BTW the error message manual is an excellent idea. I hope that we will
see the same thing for other Unix systems (e.g. 4.2bsd).
--
Mark
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decwrl!qubix!msc@Berkeley.ARPAguy@rlgvax.UUCP (07/19/83)
Oh wonderful; this does sound like the start of something bad. What if
somebody is distributing a UNIX with the ability to do sysgens (you don't
need source to do a USG sysgen, at least not by my definition of "source),
and they want to send out the "Setting up UNIX" stuff in the Administrator's
Guide (not the Administrator's Manual), only they want one that refers to
their Foobar X37 and its peripherals, not to the PDP-11, VAX-11, and 3B20?
For that matter, what if they've fixed the egregious misfeature that the system
accounting package requires you to have source unless you want the same
holiday schedule as Bell Labs' 1982 schedule (as we have), and they want to
update the documentation they send out? The only conceivable answer I can
think of is that Bell is trying to make sure the only UNIX systems that
get put on micros are unmodified except by approved parties; this would also
explain the distrubing tendency they are showing towards binary-only
distribution (as with the Instructional Workbench). System III actually had
documents in machine-readable form that weren't in printed form; if you're
a UNIX OEM and you don't get the FULL documentation in machine-readable form,
if you need it you should yell at WECo until you get it, explaining to them
why you need it and why other OEMs (and end users) may need it.
Guy Harris
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