gnu (01/28/83)
I somehow got the impression that a Unix binary license (from whatever source) entitles the user to legally receive (from any source) binary programs derived from the System III (or whatever) source code. This leads me to believe that anyone with a source license could compile csh, lint, make, etc, with a publicly-available 68000 C compiler such as MIT's, and sell the binaries (of the tools and the compiler) to the customers of Fortune, Microsoft, etc, at, say, triple the cost of the medium, plus shipping. They could even throw in the man pages for free. This would either put a dent in the disgusting practice of pricing chunks of the Unix system separately (which the manufacturer got from Bell along with the rest of the system, and to which the end user is entitled when they buy the sub-license), or would make money if the large companies kept their current pricing, since presumably lots of people are willing to save $700 or more by buying the same tools from an independent house. John Gilmore, Sun Microsystems PS: It'd be fun to do (-: but Sun is probably too busy to do it. Perhaps some university or small entrepreneur can make some money and improve the market this way. PPS: Sure, the MIT compiler is not the best in the world, but are you willing to spend $750 for Microsoft's 20% faster csh? Not in a system where the 1/4 second "mini-Winnie" disk is the problem.