kjh@pollux.usc.edu (Kenneth J. Hendrickson) (12/22/90)
Having just finished finals, I have had a chance to be a real person once again. I noticed in a recent (late November) issue of EDN that the Open Software Foundation is announcing that they will release their OSF/1 kernel very soon. It also listed the cost to get a copy of this software. I seem to remember $5000 for a single user license w/o any source code! I'm not sure, but I thought that maybe OSF == GNU. Please correct me if I'm wrong. If this is true, I don't have any hope for a free full V.4/BSD Unix ever coming out. (I sincerly hope I'm wrong.) -- favourite oxymorons: student athlete, military justice, mercy killing Ken Hendrickson N8DGN/6 kjh@usc.edu ...!uunet!usc!pollux!kjh
paradis@acestes.UUCP (Jim Paradis) (12/22/90)
In article <28990@usc> kjh@pollux.usc.edu (Kenneth J. Hendrickson) writes: >I'm not sure, but I thought that maybe OSF == GNU. Please correct me if >I'm wrong. If this is true, I don't have any hope for a free full >V.4/BSD Unix ever coming out. (I sincerly hope I'm wrong.) You're wrong. OSF most emphatically != GNU. In fact, when OSF was started, Stallman was a bit peeved at their choice of name (GNU is produced by the *Free* Software Foundation, a different animal entirely). As for free unices, my little bird tells me that UCB is working on "scrubbing" the AT&T code from BSD UNIX. When that is done, BSD UNIX will indeed be completely free... -- Jim Paradis UUCP: harvard!m2c!jjmhome!acestes!paradis 9 Carlstad St. AT&T: (508) 792-3810 Worcester, MA 01607-1569 ICBM: 42deg 13' 52", 71deg 47' 51"
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (12/22/90)
In article <28990@usc> kjh@pollux.usc.edu (Kenneth J. Hendrickson) writes: >It also listed the cost to get a copy of this [i.e. OSF/1] >software. I seem to remember $5000 for a single user license w/o any >source code! > >I'm not sure, but I thought that maybe OSF == GNU. Please correct me if >I'm wrong. If this is true, I don't have any hope for a free full >V.4/BSD Unix ever coming out. (I sincerly hope I'm wrong.) Consider yourself corrected. Axiom 1. GNU = FSF Axiom 2. OSF != FSF Theorem 1. OSF != GNU Proof 1. Trivial. Is the price for a single binary license $5000? I find this impossible to swallow. I might believe $500 and I would certainly believe $50. Anybody know the Truth? Last I heard, FSF was contemplating writing a UNIX server on top of Mach 3.0. Since all Mach 3.0 provides is communication services, all they have to do is rewrite most of BSD from scratch. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
boot@donald.osf.org (Bruce Bauman) (12/28/90)
I think binary license fees for OSF/1 IN QUANTITY are on the order of $50, but we (OSF) don't deal directly with end users. If you want an official story, call OSF directly - (617)-621-8700. You can get all the facts, and save some net bandwidth. -- Bruce Bauman email: boot@osf.org phone: 617-621-7205 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142 "Give me the number for 911" -- Homer Simpson