larry@belch.Berkeley.EDU (Larry Foard) (10/10/90)
I think I must have had a little to much coffee the other day :) All I ask is please remember the "little" guys, after all there are more of us.... Free kernel: Although the kernel by itself doesn't do much, I think you could peice together a useful OS out of all the freeware utilitys available. Almost every critical thing is available for free except the kernel. On a darker note: As soon as there is a free unix like OS, AT&T will sue for look and feel :(
escher@Apple.COM (Michael Crawford) (10/11/90)
In article <1990Oct10.043444.13850@agate.berkeley.edu> larry@belch.Berkeley.EDU (Larry Foard) writes: > Although the kernel by itself doesn't do much, I think you could >peice together a useful OS out of all the freeware utilitys available. Indeed, a lot of work could be contributed by those who do not have source licenses, if only they could get a kernel, no matter how funky. All I absolutely need is already available from the FSF except the kernel. >On a darker note: > As soon as there is a free unix like OS, AT&T will sue for look and >feel :( I have often wondered about this, and think there may be a precedent to keep it from happening. In the Winter of '87 or so I read a magazine article which described an Air Force request for bids that specified they wanted some computers that ran the Unix SystemV operating system. An OS vendor other than AT&T sued over this, saying that by specifying SystemV, the Air Force had pre-selected the vendor. AT&T defended this (I think), saying that any OS that satisfied the System V Interface Definition would satisfy the Air Force's requirements. The judge agreed. Even though there was no other such OS, one could, in principle, make one. So it looks like AT&T shot themselves in the foot over that. I do not know any more, or even remember what magazine the article was in. It might have been Unix World. If anyone knows what the case was, or where I could find the magazine article, I would dearly like to know. There is another problem. I understand one of those fellows, Ritchey I think, has patented the setuid bit, so one would have to license the bit to have any security systems work as under normal unix. I don't know how this would interact with the case mentioned above. -- Michael D. Crawford Oddball Enterprises Consulting for Apple Computer Inc. 606 Modesto Avenue escher@apple.com Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Applelink: escher@apple.com@INTERNET# oddball!mike@ucscc.ucsc.edu The opinions expressed here are solely my own. "This is Apple. Reality changes hourly, so your mileage may vary." -- chuq