bpalmer@bbn.com (Brian Palmer) (09/12/89)
I know this was asked a month or so ago but I never saw a reply. A rumor was going around that: (I'll ask this in parts) 1. CMU was rewriting the ATT code in the kernel. 2. Mach would be released in the "public domain" in September. (Anyone at CMU care to comment?) 3. The Free Software Foundation (ie RMS and friends) were going to use the Mach kernel. Can any of this be true? ( ... maybe I just dreamed it all. ) Brian bpalmer@bbn.com
craig@wave4.webo.dg.com (Craig Presson) (09/13/89)
In article <45443@bbn.COM> bpalmer@bbn.com (Brian Palmer) writes: > > >I know this was asked a month or so ago but I never saw a reply. A rumor >was going around that: (I'll ask this in parts) > > 1. CMU was rewriting the ATT code in the kernel. > > 2. Mach would be released in the "public domain" in September. > (Anyone at CMU care to comment?) > > 3. The Free Software Foundation (ie RMS and friends) were going > to use the Mach kernel. FACT: The following appeared in the January 89 _GNU's Bulletin_ in the GNU Project Status Report: (BEGIN FSF Copyrighted material) * Kernel We hope to use the MACH message-passing kernel being developed at CMU. The current version of MACH is not free, and cannot be, because it contains the file system code from BSD. However, the MACH developers say that all this will be replaced with free code, or at least moved into user processes, and MACH will be free then. This version of MACH is supposed to be released in a few months (as of December 1988). If MACH does not become available, then We will probably develop the GNU kernel starting with either MIT's TRIX kernel or Berkeley's Sprite system. (END FSF Copyrighted material) > >Can any of this be true? ( ... maybe I just dreamed it all. ) > >Brian >bpalmer@bbn.com > "Lewis F. Richardson ... studied fluid turbulence by throwing a sack of white parsnips into the Cape Cod Canal, and asked in a 1926 paper, 'Does the Wind Possess a Velocity?'" -- Gleick, _Chaos_ craig@wave4.webo.dg.com Craig Presson, Data General, Westborough Mass. dg/ux development
dld@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (David Detlefs) (09/13/89)
My officemate is Mike Young, one of the main graduate students involved in the Mach Project. He was kind enough to take time out from writing his thesis to comment on this post: >I know this was asked a month or so ago but I never saw a reply. A rumor >was going around that: (I'll ask this in parts) > > 1. CMU was rewriting the ATT code in the kernel. > > 2. Mach would be released in the "public domain" in September. > (Anyone at CMU care to comment?) > > 3. The Free Software Foundation (ie RMS and friends) were going > to use the Mach kernel. > >Can any of this be true? ( ... maybe I just dreamed it all. ) Some answers: 1) is at least partly true. In the semi-near term (Mike declined to discuss exact dates, interpret my expressions as you will) it may be possible to obtain a "pure" Mach kernel that does not require a Unix license. Note, however, that the sense in which Mike is using kernel here may be different from the sense in which you are used to hearing it. This would provide the Mach task and thread abstractions, but little else. In particular, a Unix emulation package would be required to make it look like Unix. As currently envisioned, this would originally contain AT&T licensed code. (Note that the "pure" Mach kernel would also be a suitable platform on which to implement an OS/2 emulation package, for example.) In the "medium-term," this emulation code may be rewritten to obviate the need for a Unix license. This still only covers the operating-system level of Unix -- no effort is envisioned to rewrite user-level utilities, except occasionally to take advantage of Mach-specific features. In short, "kind of, but don't hold your breath." 2) Mach is not in "the public domain," and there are no plans to make it so in the future. Users of Mach must sign a Mach license agreement, which, among other things requires them to give back any significant modifications to CMU. Note that even if it becomes the case that no Unix license is required to run a Unix-like Mach, CMU may be constrained by the project funding source (i.e., the Defense Department) from distributing Mach to non-US users. 3) I dunno, but the above makes it unlikely in the very near term. -- Dave Detlefs Any correlation between my employer's opinion Carnegie-Mellon CS and my own is statistical rather than causal, dld@cs.cmu.edu except in those cases where I have helped to form my employer's opinion. (Null disclaimer.)
pell@isy.liu.se (P{r Emanuelsson) (10/01/89)
dld@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (David Detlefs) writes: >Note that even if it becomes the >case that no Unix license is required to run a Unix-like Mach, CMU may >be constrained by the project funding source (i.e., the Defense >Department) from distributing Mach to non-US users. So the FSF would have to take orders from the DoD. Great. Just what the world needs... -- "Don't think; let the machine do it for you!" -- E. C. Berkeley Dept. of Electrical Engineering pell@isy.liu.se University of Linkoping, Sweden ...!uunet!isy.liu.se!pell