30 Aug
2018
30 Aug
'18
7:41 p.m.
From: Clem Cole
The problem is finding some at Oracle that would care
Well, I've got a nephew who's been at Oracle for like 20+ years; he can
probably point us at the right person.
and finding a proper distribution tape to officially
release.
Why do we need that? Can't they say 'any and all versions of SunOS', and
that
term ('SunOS') is sufficiently well defined in real-world documents (e.g. Sun
licenses) that that should be 'good enough'.
It sounds like the _actual code_ is reasonably available, we wouldn't need
Oracle to go looking around for it, would we?
Noel
8:04 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 1:41 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:
The trouble, as I was given to understand when I worked at Solbourne, was
that SunOS wasn't just AT&T + BSD 4.2 + 4.3 + awesome hacking at SMI.
There were a number of third party bits and pieces in there that could not
be relicensed, even 28 years ago when things were fresh. Good luck getting
those third party permissions now... Sun's paid-up Unix license they did
for Solaris would cover any bits of AT&T code that was in there.
A quick grep of something that fell off an http server suggests that the
number of these is quite limited. However, the files they are on have no
other license, even though latter-day versions are available of hack, hunt,
indent and pax are available (though to be fair, the latter two do give
permission explicitly, and a good case can be made for hunt). I have no way
of knowing, however, if there are other IP issues, not limited to unmarked
sources, copyright notices that aren't 'well formed', code that's
been
hacked by third parties under a contract granting them copyright ownership
and sun just a license, etc. It's that quagmire that efforts like this will
run up against.
Warner
and finding a
proper distribution tape to officially release.
Why do we need that? Can't they say 'any and all versions of SunOS', and
that
term ('SunOS') is sufficiently well defined in real-world documents (e.g.
Sun
licenses) that that should be 'good enough'.
It sounds like the _actual code_ is reasonably available, we wouldn't need
Oracle to go looking around for it, would we?
8:22 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 02:04:10PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 1:41 PM Noel Chiappa
<jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:
The trouble, as I was given to understand when I worked at Solbourne, was
that SunOS wasn't just AT&T + BSD 4.2 + 4.3 + awesome hacking at SMI.
There were a number of third party bits and pieces in there that could not
be relicensed, even 28 years ago when things were fresh.
So I've been down this path, it was STREAMS and RFS, and maybe a couple
of drivers. I pulled all that crud out, put back the BSD tty code,
and I had a SunOS we could have given away. It was back when I was
writing this:
http://mcvoy.com/lm/bitmover/lm/papers/freeos.pdf
and I needed to be able to show that what I was asking for was possible.
and
finding a proper distribution tape to officially release.
Why do we need that? Can't they say 'any and all versions of SunOS', and
that
term ('SunOS') is sufficiently well defined in real-world documents (e.g.
Sun
licenses) that that should be 'good enough'.
It sounds like the _actual code_ is reasonably available, we wouldn't need
Oracle to go looking around for it, would we?
A quick grep of something that fell off an http server
suggests that the
number of these is quite limited. However, the files they are on have no
other license, even though latter-day versions are available of hack, hunt,
indent and pax are available (though to be fair, the latter two do give
permission explicitly, and a good case can be made for hunt).
So you are including userland. I'm not sure you need to. Yeah, there was
some unicode work done there but quite frankly, I'd just have
/usr/gnu/bin
/usr/bsd/bin
/usr/sun/bin
and dump anything questionable in sun/bin. It's the kernel that was the
most interesting, next would be the run time loader and shared libraries.
/usr/bin wasn't that exciting, the BSD purists might want that but I gotta
believe that BSD has caught up to Sun in 25 years (right???).
8:33 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 4:22 PM Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
So I've been down this path, it was STREAMS and RFS, and maybe a couple
of drivers. I pulled all that crud out, put back the BSD tty code,
and I had a SunOS we could have given away. It was back when I was
writing this:
http://mcvoy.com/lm/bitmover/lm/papers/freeos.pdf
and I needed to be able to show that what I was asking for was possible.
Good to know you think it was possible. I know in the case of Ultrix and
HP-UX lots of external folks licenses small things like Mentat, MIPS etc.
For instance, one of the Ultrix and Alpha bug-a-boos was the MIPS
compiler, which leaked into the IP stream along the way. As far as I
remember from my Locus days when we had just about everybody's sources from
IBM to Sun, the problem was the license was not just the OEM and AT&T,
there was always the sub-licenses from some deal or another that the OEM
had cut at some point.
Clem
ᐧ
8:36 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 04:33:06PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 4:22 PM Larry McVoy
<lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
At this point, Linux has won, I don't think anyone would care if we got
the whole pile.
As Rob Gingell once said "Bits rot. Unmaintained source quickly becomes
worthless".
So I've been down this path, it was STREAMS
and RFS, and maybe a couple
of drivers. I pulled all that crud out, put back the BSD tty code,
and I had a SunOS we could have given away. It was back when I was
writing this:
http://mcvoy.com/lm/bitmover/lm/papers/freeos.pdf
and I needed to be able to show that what I was asking for was possible.
Good to know you think it was possible. I know in the case of Ultrix and
HP-UX lots of external folks licenses small things like Mentat, MIPS etc.
8:37 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
below...
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 3:41 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:
For the former, Sun did have source distributions, typically for
Universities and certain OEMs. Stellar had a 4.x license for the Sun3s but
I can not tell you which one (we used Sun3's as the porting base and wanted
the basic Sun3 support from SunOS to support it as we developed Stellix).
For the later, we need to make sure you have the whole thing. Most OEM's
had stuff from other firms, from compilers to whole subsystems.
ᐧ
From: Clem
Cole
The problem is finding some at Oracle that would
care
Well, I've got a nephew who's been at Oracle for like 20+ years; he can
probably point us at the right person.
and finding a proper distribution tape to
officially release.
Why do we need that? Can't they say 'any and all versions of SunOS', and
that
term ('SunOS') is sufficiently well defined in real-world documents (e.g.
Sun
licenses) that that should be 'good enough'.
Two issues: 1.) what consitutes release X or Y and 2) sublicenses.
8:38 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 2:22 PM Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 02:04:10PM -0600, Warner Losh
wrote:
not
Why would STREAMS and RFS be a problem post OpenSolaris?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 1:41 PM Noel Chiappa
<jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:
> > and finding a proper distribution tape to officially release.
>
> Why do we need that? Can't they say 'any and all versions of SunOS',
and
> that
> term ('SunOS') is sufficiently well defined in real-world documents
(e.g.
> Sun
> licenses) that that should be 'good enough'.
>
> It sounds like the _actual code_ is reasonably available, we wouldn't
need
Oracle to
go looking around for it, would we?
The trouble, as I was given to understand when I worked at Solbourne, was
that SunOS wasn't just AT&T + BSD 4.2 + 4.3 + awesome hacking at SMI.
There were a number of third party bits and pieces in there that could be relicensed, even 28 years ago when things were
fresh.
So I've been down this path, it was STREAMS and RFS, and maybe a couple
of drivers. I pulled all that crud out, put back the BSD tty code,
and I had a SunOS we could have given away. It was back when I was
writing this:
http://mcvoy.com/lm/bitmover/lm/papers/freeos.pdf
and I needed to be able to show that what I was asking for was possible.
grep -r was easy :).
Warner
A quick grep of something that fell off an http
server suggests that the
number of these is quite limited. However, the files they are on have no
other license, even though latter-day versions are available of hack,
hunt,
indent and pax are available (though to be fair,
the latter two do give
permission explicitly, and a good case can be made for hunt).
So you are including userland. I'm not sure you need to. Yeah, there was
some unicode work done there but quite frankly, I'd just have
/usr/gnu/bin
/usr/bsd/bin
/usr/sun/bin
and dump anything questionable in sun/bin. It's the kernel that was the
most interesting, next would be the run time loader and shared libraries.
/usr/bin wasn't that exciting, the BSD purists might want that but I gotta
believe that BSD has caught up to Sun in 25 years (right???).
8:40 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 4:36 PM Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
As Rob Gingell once said "Bits rot. Unmaintained source quickly becomes
worthless".
Yep. So the question goes back to what is SunOS 4.x.y. You seem to be
thinking in terms of looking at the kernel from those days (which is a fine
definition), but others said - hey I want to run this on my X or Y system.
That's a different definition I think.
Clem
ᐧ
8:42 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 02:38:39PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
That was then, this is now. Back then they were definitely a problem.
I nuked all the AT&T Sys V stuff in the kernel because that had perceived
value to AT&T, they still thought Sys V was going to rule the world.
So I took us back to BSD + Sun's work. Which was a more pleasant place
anyway IMO.
I pulled all
that crud out, put back the BSD tty code,
and I had a SunOS we could have given away.
Why would STREAMS and RFS be a problem post OpenSolaris?
8:43 p.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 04:40:49PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 4:36 PM Larry McVoy
<lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
I suspect that if SunOS got any traction it would be the kernel plus
maybe their shared libs and the Linux user space. And it would need to
be ported to x86_64.
As Rob Gingell once said "Bits rot. Unmaintained source quickly becomes
worthless".
Yep. So the question goes back to what is SunOS 4.x.y. You seem to be
thinking in terms of looking at the kernel from those days (which is a fine
definition), but others said - hey I want to run this on my X or Y system.
That's a different definition I think. 
31 Aug
31 Aug
5:49 a.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
I have something called sunos-414-source.tar.gz. It expands to a
solaris_112 directory. There are sources for kernel, etc, bin ucb,
5bin, usr.bin... Looks to be sun4 only, no 68k. No version history.
Free to a good home. (I sent a copy to Kossow years ago.)
9:50 a.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
On Fri, 31 Aug 2018, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
I have something called sunos-414-source.tar.gz. It
expands to a
solaris_112 directory. There are sources for kernel, etc, bin ucb,
5bin, usr.bin... Looks to be sun4 only, no 68k. No version history.
Free to a good home. (I sent a copy to Kossow years ago.)
Umm, this message is a bit confusing... Is it a single physical medium
that you happened to have, or software that you are willing to distribute
upon some sort of an agreement, or what?
At the very least, it ought to find its way into Warren's hands...
-- Dave
11:01 a.m.
New subject: SunOS code?
Hello!
Of course I am interested. I am as they say, always interested. But I
also agree with Dave there as well. A copy should be delivered to
Warren.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 5:50 AM, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Fri, 31 Aug 2018, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
I have something called sunos-414-source.tar.gz.
It expands to a
solaris_112 directory. There are sources for kernel, etc, bin ucb, 5bin,
usr.bin... Looks to be sun4 only, no 68k. No version history.
Free to a good home. (I sent a copy to Kossow years ago.)
Umm, this message is a bit confusing... Is it a single physical medium that
you happened to have, or software that you are willing to distribute upon
some sort of an agreement, or what?
At the very least, it ought to find its way into Warren's hands...
-- Dave
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days inactive
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15 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Clem Cole -
Dave Horsfall -
Gregg Levine -
jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu -
Larry McVoy -
Lars Brinkhoff -
Warner Losh