[TUHS] Open Sourcing IRIX?

[Michael Kerpan]

As I said, IRIX itself is nothing but an obsolete kernel. It might be
cool for preservation purposes to have the code (and that's what TUHS
is all about) but as a practical solution, I'm not really sure. SGI
has already opened up a lot of their best stuff (XFS, OpenGL, Inventor
(a sinfully under-used high level layer on top of OpenGL) The main
thing they haven't opened up is their Desktop. It's really a far
superior Motif-based system than CDE (the look, for example is so
well-modified that it doesn't even have that archaic Motif-y look) and
an open source version of the IRIX desktop layered on top of Linux (or
*BSD) would really go a long way towards producing a usable AND
attractive Unix-like for lower-end systems.

Any idea of the odds of at least the IRIX Desktop being opened up?

On 11/26/06, Paul Duffy <dubhthach at compsoc.nuigalway.ie> wrote:
> Highly unlikely. After all they didn't buy out their Unix license like Sun
> did. IRIX has been basically abandoned by SGI which is a pity. However
> their is quite an IRIX user community at Nekochan with 1500 members on the
> forums: http://forums.nekochan.net/index.php
>
> Nekoware as it called is probably the best repositry of
> freeware/opensource software out their for IRIX these days. Even SGI's own
> freeware site points to them.
>
> -Paul
>
> "There is no greater sorrow then to remember times of happiness when
> miserable" -- Dante "The Inferno"
>
> On Sun, 26 Nov 2006, Lord Doomicus wrote:
>
> > Since SGI is EOL'ing IRIX at the end of the year, has anyone asked them if
> > they would donate it's source ( under some sort of OSI license of course ) to
> > the UNIX archive?
> >
> > Or is there too much SysV code in it?
> >
> > It would be cool to have easy access to the older IRIX versions for older SGI
> > hardware.
> >
> > - Derrik
> >
> > Derrik Walker v2.0, RHCE
> > lorddoomicus at mac.com
> > http://www.doomd.net
> >
> > ...  I am using an Apple Macintosh to design the Cray-3 supercomputer.  --
> > Seymour Cray, 1986
> >
> >
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