ramani@modesty.Stanford.EDU (Ramani Pichumani) (08/16/89)
We have recently installed 3.1G on our 4D machines and are interested in developing X11-based applications. Apparently, SGI ships a development version of X windows which is purchased separately. Since X is public domain and has already been ported to many machines, it seems rather odd that SGI is charging $$$$ for something which is obtained for free on Sun, DEC and HP workstations. I am wondering if anyone else has already ported Xlib, etc, to the 4D's and if so, they can make their code patches available to other users. Thanks in advance, Ramani Pichumani E-mail: ramani@na-net.stanford.edu Department of Computer Science, Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 308, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
msc@ramoth.esd.sgi.com (Mark Callow) (08/31/89)
In article <11325@polya.Stanford.EDU>, ramani@modesty.Stanford.EDU (Ramani Pichumani) writes: > > We have recently installed 3.1G on our 4D machines and are interested > in developing X11-based applications. Apparently, SGI ships a > development version of X windows which is purchased separately. Since > X is public domain and has already been ported to many machines, it > seems rather odd that SGI is charging $$$$ for something which is > obtained for free on Sun, DEC and HP workstations. I am wondering if > anyone else has already ported Xlib, etc, to the 4D's and if so, they > can make their code patches available to other users. > We charge for the development option because: a) it includes a set of manuals that costs us a lot of money b) we support it - i.e. we pay people to port it and fix bugs in it If you want the "free" (MIT copyrighted, not public domain) version then get it from MIT, port it and print your own documentation. DEC and Sun both charge for their X products. You have to pay money to DEC to get any software for the 3100 beyond the basic UNIX with a dumb terminal emulator. Sun charges a licence fee for X11/NeWS (I'm pretty sure they do anyway). I expect that as Sun rolls over to X11/NeWS as the default window system on their systems they will come up with a strategy similar to ours. I don't know about HP but I expect they charge for their products too. One of the great myths about X is that it is free. It is only free if you are capable of doing software development, have network access payed for by someone else, and have time to spare. -- -Mark