[comp.windows.x] Looking for Sun 3 version of swm

wmk@fed.FRB.GOV (William M. Kules) (01/09/91)

I'm looking for a Sun 3 binary of swm, the Solbourne window manager,
and the Object Interface toolkit that it's built on.

Swm is real pretty.  It does almost everything tvtwm does (gee, I
wonder why), and you can choose your GUI at run time.  It supports
OpenLook (2 & 3D), Motif, twm, etc.

< Begin sob story >

It comes bundled with Solbourne's system software for their Sparc
clones, but not with source.  Unfortunately for us, they've licensed
the source code to AT&T, who is charging $10,000 for a single CPU
source license, and they don't sell binaries.

So we're kind of stuck.  AT&T won't even tell us who we might be able
to get a binary-only version from, and we can't afford the $15,000+
that it would cost to put it on our network.

< End sob story >

My questions (only the first one is important):

1) Is anyone supporting swm on a Sun 3 platform?

2) Is AT&T doing this to stifle possible competition for their
   products, or is it just SOP for them to have such unfavorable
   licensing arrangements?

3) What made Solbourne decide to license it to AT&T, instead of
   donating it to the X Consortium, where it could be useful?  
   Money?  Oh, well.  So much for the spirit of the FSF.

Thanks in advance for any info.


Bill Kules, Automation and Research Computing | Internet: wmk@fed.FRB.GOV
Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC         |     UUCP: uunet!fed!wmk
"Recycling:  Just do it, dammit!"             |    Phone: (202) 452-3933

Discliamer:  Any opinions expressed our implied are mine and mine only.