mason@Pescadero.stanford.edu (Tony Mason) (02/03/88)
[ This is in response to a query that I sent to Tony about the availability ] [ of V. --DL ] The V distributed operating system can be licensed from Stanford University via their Office of Technology Licensing. Currently, version 6.0 is distributed. That distribution was produced in the summer of 1986. So, as you can guess, it does not represent the state of the world. Instead, we are tentatively discussing a new distribution (7.0?) for the summer of 1988. The new version will be dramatically different. It will include support for V fileservers (6.0 uses a UNIX host as a file server,) virtual memory support, plus a much enhanced collection of tools, a new windowing system and other goodies. Quite a bit has been done in the past two years and 7.0 is quite usable. In fact, virtually everyone here uses it. So, if you are interested, it is worth the trouble to look at 6.0 but 7.0 will definitely be the preferred product. Bug reports, questions, etc. are handled by the distributed systems group. There is a USENET news group devoted to V (comp.os.v) which also coincides with a mailing list (info-v@pescadero.stanford.edu.) Questions and problems from those forums are redistributed to the entire group. I currently attempt to coordinate and make sure inquiries are answered. If you have more specific questions, feel free to drop me a note. Tony Mason Distributed Systems Group Stanford University mason@pescadero.stanford.edu