myers@andromeda.UUCP (Scott R Myers) (01/16/87)
Now this maybe a bit premature but I'm interested in being able to license Minix and obtaining the source so that I can port it over to another machine... Can anyone give me some ideas on whether I can do this or not and if so how??? Thanx... Scott R. Myers ...!topaz!andromeda!myers <><><><><><> myers@andromeda
sci@kestrel.UUCP (01/16/87)
to copy MINIX source for "Educational" purposes. If you actually want to delivor most of the system, then they would want to be payed, a maximum of $79 for the additional copy. I think that it might be appropriate to use this group to try to assist Prentice Hall in developing a policy and Licence on this type of use of MINIX. My impression was that they were relatively new in the field of Software Distribution, and that if the ARPA community can suggest a "resonable" policy, they would be willing to consider it. It is my impression that the author and publisher want to have a policy that satisfies the following conditions, not necessarly in the following order: 1) To allow programmers access to a large set of source code that is discribed in the book. 2) To collect a minimal royalty on the use ($79) of signifficant portions of MINIX. 3) To somehow provide a coordination center so that further development and ports are documented so that people know about them. As a STRAW MAN, I will propose the following license, not in any way discussed with the publisher or author: MINIX source should be freely distributed and is also available from Prentice Hall. Any distribution of MINIX must contain in an obvious place the license conditions for the re-distribution and use of MINIX. If code derived from MINIX is executed then Prentice Hall should be payed in proportion to the percent of the source that was used, up to a maximin of $79. I have no idea if this would be agreable to the developers of MINIX, but as time proceeds, and we see if the MINIX system is worth while, I am sure that we can clarify the situation.
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (01/20/87)
I hope Prentice-Hall quickly consult with some good lawyers who specialize in software protection. My feeling is that they should insist on a full $79 royalty per CPU for any use of any of MINIX on that CPU. No exceptions. $79 is a piddling amount of money for sources for a useful operating system. How could anyone in his right mind object to forking over the money?
jte@psuvax1.UUCP (Jon Eckhardt) (01/21/87)
I think that it may be a good idea to give a free copy but this copy not
leagaly copied for other purposes to Universities so that people could
see what it was like and if they wanted to buy one of their own they
would know what they would be getting. I know of a lot of people who
give their software/hardware to universities so that students will
want to go and buy it for themselves and for the companies that they go
and work for. I would state that the copy that goes to universities
may not be copied for use outside of the University or even the computer
that it is licensed to. That way people would rather spend the $79.00 then
risk getting taken to jail. It is not a large price to pay for something
like that and I for one would honor any copyright laws that came with
this type of source because it is very cheap for what you get. Also,
a comp.os.minix.bugs or something like that maybe should be added if
a lot of software bugs are found so that people can get fixes.
Just a mess of ideas, you don't need to use any of them.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------dean@ndmath.UUCP (07/08/87)
i am considering ordering the minix source disks, with the hopes of modifying it for use on an old S-100 system. my question is this: can the source files be read from the disks before booting the minix operating system (ie. can the disks be read as ordinary pc-disks), or are the source files on disks with special format?