Note that this is not available under a conventional open source license, but one of the "non-commercial use" variety. Don't rush to incorporate it into your products ;-).
Where is Richard Stallman when you need him? This thread seems indefensibly void of "free" vs. "open-source" software ranting. (Seriously though, the restrictive license on this is really a bummer.)
> Seriously though, the restrictive license on this is really a bummer.
I question how much it really matters. If you wanted to create something like xv6 (the x86 remix of sixth edition Unix), you wouldn't want to keep too much of the original code anyway, would you?
Most of the C code I saw there are full of ancient practices, for one, I haven't seen a single #include in about ten or more files I looked at (IDK if CPP existed at all).
Good news, but it's not open source. The statement at the root of the projects says only:
"[...] that it will not assert its copyright rights with respect to any non-commercial copying, distribution, performance, display or creation of derivative works of Research Unix®".
Well, specifically, it implies an open source license under the OSI definition, which happens to be almost identical in a licenses covered to the Free Software definition from the FSF.
It might to you, but it shouldn't. The definition of open source is not controlled by the OSI; they only organize licenses and certify licenses as OSI-approved. However, you don't need an OSI-approved license to be open source. There are many open source packages that are not under an OSI license--most famously, SQLite.
They didn't invent the term. The term was invented first. The OSI was founded later. See the OSI's own post on this [1].
A much more detailed discussion of the origin of the term and its initial use appears here [2]. The latter link in particular is interesting reading, because it includes the political dimensions (especiall w.r.t O'Reilly's difficulties with the FSF).
You don't need to use an OSI-approved license to be Open Source, but you need to use a license that complies with OSI's Open Source definition. Otherwise, the term would be meaningless.
The people complaining that this isn't free-as-in-freedom should remember that there's a lot of code in here that Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent does not and has never owned. 10th edition, specifically, was never 'distributed' and probably could not be because it contained gcc. You'll note these archives are not even hosted by the corporation. They STILL aren't 'distributing' any of this. There's no way to know a priori whether there's someone else's IP in here... the packaging method for these versions of unix was "Dennis makes a copy of a running system, including whatever happened to be on that disk."
So, this is a kind gesture made for the benefit of software archaeologists. Retroactively applying some kind of modern-hippie license would cost a tremendous amount of time and money.
Folks aren't necessarily complaining about the release, rather, the issue was with the title which previously incorrectly called the release "open source". HN admins have since changed the title, see comments further down.
V10 hardly contained gcc. People imported whatever external software they wanted. Norman Wilson's tape doesn't include gcc, Dan Cross' tape does. However, gcc wasn't used by anything in v10, the system compiler was based on pcc.
While the engineer in me abhors the lack of process in their releases, I like the idea of their almost genetic distribution on a, like, LSD tripping level.
Go tell that to companies that deliver crippled unusable community edition only so they can put an Open-Source sticker on their paying premium product...
As a matter of fact, whenever I think about the original UNIX and how far we've come from that to modern day operating systems, I get a little nostalgic, and feel like back then software development was done for much more than just money.
Also, it's pity that this work of art (and many other pieces of software alike) have always been under the ownership of some "corporate" guys.
/proc, user-level filesystems (used for netb/netfs, and i think upas too), dmr's streams (not STREAMS), and a whole TCP/IP and DataKit stack using streams different from BSD's networking stack, the rc shell used later in Plan 9 (somehome missing from these archives though), mk (also used in Plan 9), upas (also used in Plan 9), GUI on the blit/jerk terminal, the sam text editor, and a lot of other stuff that I'm forgetting right now.
Back when I was in University, we had an Amdahl mainframe with Unix running under VM. The directory structure included an awful lot of source code. I remember porting source for lex and yacc to my PC-XT running Borland's Turbo C. I assume it was licensed to Universities and source was included under an educational clause, though I'm not exactly sure.
I wonder which version of unix I was using. This would have been around December of '87.
It was either CMS (a single-user UNIX-like commonly distributed with VM) or VM/IX aka AIX/370 (an IBM-flavored SysV, but almost totally unrelated to the other AIX products.)
I used VM/CMS quite a bit in the '80s; CMS is nothing remotely like Unix (or much of anything else outside of the IBM universe).
VM/IX (nee IX/370) is not the same thing as AIX/370; IX was a joint development with ISC (who also wrote PC/IX) while AIX/370 was a joint development with Locus (who also wrote AIX for PS/2 and PC/RT). IX/370 faded away and AIX/370 evolved into AIX/ESA which allowed it to run as a guest VM.
History lesson aside, since the OP specifically said he was using an Amdahl, he was almost certainly runnig UTS.
The README indicates that there are files for 1st and 2nd Plan 9 editions but those are not made available. [1] I guess Lucent's lawyers still want to keep their rights over those...
I have a shrink-wrapped 2nd edition distribution with manuals, but no source :(
This is a little off topic but I want to take a moment and say thank you to Warren Toomey. He is responsible for TUHS and it is a wonder resource for people who enjoy UNIX.
60 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadI believe this would be closer to "Shared Source"[2] than anything else.
[1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source
I question how much it really matters. If you wanted to create something like xv6 (the x86 remix of sixth edition Unix), you wouldn't want to keep too much of the original code anyway, would you?
"[...] that it will not assert its copyright rights with respect to any non-commercial copying, distribution, performance, display or creation of derivative works of Research Unix®".
Alcatel-Lucent makes the source code of 8th, 9th and 10th Editions of Unix public
Since the general usage of the word open source has implications about the a "free" license to use too.
*edited for clarity and a typo.
A much more detailed discussion of the origin of the term and its initial use appears here [2]. The latter link in particular is interesting reading, because it includes the political dimensions (especiall w.r.t O'Reilly's difficulties with the FSF).
[1] https://opensource.org/history [2] http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch11.html
We also have a blit emulator, but it's for Plan 9 only at the moment.
It's unclear whether there exists a sun m68k emulator that could run v9.
https://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2017/04/01/rese...
https://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2017/04/01/rese...
So, this is a kind gesture made for the benefit of software archaeologists. Retroactively applying some kind of modern-hippie license would cost a tremendous amount of time and money.
As a matter of fact, whenever I think about the original UNIX and how far we've come from that to modern day operating systems, I get a little nostalgic, and feel like back then software development was done for much more than just money.
Also, it's pity that this work of art (and many other pieces of software alike) have always been under the ownership of some "corporate" guys.
So.. Anyone have any insight on what these actually provide, feature wise over v7?
Have often wondered about these 'mystery unices'..
Am sure I will trawl the source archives.. but pointers would be useful.
Just also found this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Unix#Versions
durr...
https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo
(previous discussion:) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10995483
I wonder which version of unix I was using. This would have been around December of '87.
I think that is exactly how BSDs got started, and later led to the famous AT&T vs BSDi lawsuit.
VM/IX (nee IX/370) is not the same thing as AIX/370; IX was a joint development with ISC (who also wrote PC/IX) while AIX/370 was a joint development with Locus (who also wrote AIX for PS/2 and PC/RT). IX/370 faded away and AIX/370 evolved into AIX/ESA which allowed it to run as a guest VM.
History lesson aside, since the OP specifically said he was using an Amdahl, he was almost certainly runnig UTS.
I have a shrink-wrapped 2nd edition distribution with manuals, but no source :(
--
1: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dan_Cross...
The paths of mergers and acquisitions are indeed meandering.
Thank you sir!!
for never { foo(); }
Nokia bought Alcatel-Lucent over year ago. See for yourself: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com