[TUHS] UNIX System V Release 2.2 gdts Vax-780

Fri Mar 17 09:48:43 AEST 2023

On 3/16/2023 6:18 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 5:38 PM KenUnix <ken.unix.guy at gmail.com 
> <mailto:ken.unix.guy at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     So, at this point what is the safest road to take?
> 
>     Stick with v7?
> 
> I'm not a lawyer - this is not legal advice. This is how I 
> personally analyze these Ancient UNIX license wording against the 
> history of how different UNIX releases we made publically available. 
> /*YMMV - get a legal opinion and form your own opinion and make a 
> personal choice.*/
> 
> The Ancient UNIX license -- the document Warren has on the site 
> (https://www.tuhs.org/ancient.html <https://www.tuhs.org/ancient.html>) 
> says [please go read it yourself]:
> 
>     1.9 SUCCESSOR OPERATING SYSTEM means a SCO software offering that is
>     (i) specifically designed for a 16-Bit computer, or (ii) the 32V
>     version, and (iii) specifically excludes UNIX System V andsuccessor
>     operating systems.
> 
> My take ...
> 
>   * Any UNIX package based on the Research Editions 1-7 and 32V is
>     allowed. This family includes the16-bit 1BSD, 2BSD, 2.9-11BSD and
>     32V based 3BSD, 4BSD, 4.1BSD, 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD.
>   * PWB1.0 and 2.0 are 16-bit - although PWB 2.0 was not officially
>     released outside of the Bell System (except possibly for the note
>     suggested about Wollongong advertising they had it).  But under the
>     16-bit rule - I interpret both PWB 1.0 and 2.0 as being covered.
>   * PWB 3.0 (/a.k.a./ System III) was released for both PDP-11 and Vaxen
>     and was thus generally available to the Unix (source) licensees. 
>       Under the 16-bit rule, I would _/personally interpret/_ that PWB
>     3.0 is covered since it is not explicitly called out (as System V is
>     called out).
>   * This also puts PWB 4.0 in an interesting place. Like PWB 2.0, it was
>     never released outside of the Bell System; although Bell folks had
>     16-bit versions, they were starting to be depreciated in favor of
>     Vaxen and WE32000/3B-based ISAs. Given the exclusion starts at
>     System V and _/there was a 16-bit version/_ for PWB 4.0 internally,
>     again, I personally /_suspect it's okay_/, but get your own legal
>     opinion, please.
>   * Clearly, anything_no matter the _ISA any release is based on System
>     V, SVR1, SVR2, SVR3, SVR4, and SVR5 has been excluded in that
>     license, which means unless the current IP owners of System V-based
>     UNIX make a new license, I personally interpret that as a no-no
>     according to this license.
> 
> 
> Some other random thoughts..
> 
>   * Some of the commercial UNIXs (as described by Charlie WRT to Dell),
>     have encumberments beyond AT&Ts - say IP from MIPs whose compiler
>     was often used and was not based on the AT&T IP and Transcript or
>     PostScript, which came from Adobe.   For instance, besides Dell,
>     DEC, HP, IBM's versions have these types of IP issues in
>     Ultrix/HPUX/AIX.  I /_suspect _/many if not most commercial UNIX
>     released would be in the same situation - particularly given Charlie
>     example of Dell who was making a 'Wintel' release.
>   * IBM, HP, and Sun all bought out their UNIX license from AT&T at some
>     point and owned the right to do whatever they wanted with it. And as
>     has been discussed here, a version of Solaris which had SVR4 code in
>     it was released by Sun and later taken back in by Oracle.   Some
>     questions for your lawyers would be:
> 
>      1. If Solaris was released, doesn't that make at least the bits
>         from that release available forever?      Clearly, some people
>         on this list have made that interpretation - I'm personally not
>         willing to take that risk.
>      2. Assume 1 seems to mean that the Solaris IP from that release is
>         free to be examined and used since it was partly based on SVR4,
>         does that make SVR4 available also? /i.e./ it does not matter
>         what the owners of the SVR4 IP think, Sun legally released it
>         with their license?     To me, this gets back to the USL vs.
>         BSDi/UCB case ok what was what, and the question is how to show
>         some portion of the code base was or want not released by Sun
>         and what parts had been.   Again, I personally will not take
>         that risk.

To fill in the Dell details that Clem cites, this is what I see when I 
bring up Dell SVR4:

   X/Open XPG3 BASE

   Copyright (c) 1989, 1998, 1991, 1992, 1993 DELL Computer Corp.
   Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 AT&T
   Copyright (c) 1990, 1991 UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
   Copyright (c) 1987, 1988 Microsoft Corp.
   Copyright (c) 1991 Young Minds, Inc.
   Copyright (c) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 Sun Microsystems.
   Copyright (c) 1987, 1988, 1989 Lachman Associates,  Inc. (LAI)
   Copyright (c) 1989 Western Digital.
   Copyright (c) 1990, Renaissance GRX, Inc.
   Copyright (c) 1991,1992 Appian Technology Inc.
   Copyright (c) 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 Intel Corp.
   All Rights Reserved

   wd0: addr 0x00000300 irq 18 mem 0x000CC000
   sas0: addr 0x000003F8 irq 4 type: standard

   The system is coming up.    Please wait.

   Welcome to Dell UNIX System V Release 4.0 (i386/i486 version)

   System name: 2021nov

   Console Login:

The late Jeremy Chatfield is probably the person who figured out what we 
needed to say at startup in this regard. I have guesses about reasons 
for most of those 11 copyright lines and might be able to be definitive 
if I spent enough time with the source. There is at least one more line 
that I would have thought would be needed, but given Jeremy's general 
thoroughness, I assume he got this right.

Charlie
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