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On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Guy Harris wrote:

> >The have GPL'd Xview,
> 
> "GPLed" is inequivalent to "gave away in source form".  As I remember,
> the source code had a very definitely non-GPLed copyright notice, more
> like the BSD license without the "have to give credit" clause.

I believe you are correct.  Sun used a variation of the GPL to
create their own "Public License".  UI still retained the copyright.

> >OpenLook Virtual Window Manager,
> 
> Ditto, although OLVWM wasn't a Sun product - OLWM was, and somebody else
> (perhaps somebody at Sun, but it's not an official product of Sun)
> turned it into OLVWM.
> 
> >and the Olit widget set.
> 
> Considering OLIT was a product of AT&T, not Sun, Sun weren't in any
> position to give it away.

But Sun and AT&T were the key players in UI.  When Motif threatened
to make OLIT obsolete, Sun helped AT&T put OLIT into the UI public
license.

> >I believe they also
> >GPL'd the kernel source for the Sun386i.
> 
> I have never seen any indication that they did.

I was wrong.  They didn't.

> They clearly couldn't GPL the *entire* source, given that it was mostly
> a modified-at-SunEast SunOS 4.x, and SunOS 4.x had rather a lot of code
> from UNIX/32V and its not-freed-up-yet descendant, BSD, as well as a
> fair bit of code from System V Releases 2 and 3 (yes, even in the
> kernel).

There may have been some 8086 specific code released, to support
Sun386 users who wanted to upgrade their machines.

> >They have also GPL'd (or made it possible to GPL) NFS and NIS.
> 
> They certainly haven't GPLed, or given away in any form, their NFS or
> NIS implementation; they sell them for a license fee.
> 
> They've published the NFS *protocol* in an RFC, but there isn't any RFC
> for NIS.

They did help with the implementation of the versions used in Linux.
NIS+ is a "for fee" ad-on.  Of course, they would probably try
to convert you to solaris.

> They've also given away, although *NOT* under the GPL, source to SunOS
> 4.0-vintage and Solaris 2.3-vintage versions of the ONC RPC code.

Again, they contributed a "public license" (not necessarily GPL) version
of XDR and RPC.  It is not fully ONC compliant, but close.

> >Actually, Sun's biggest problems with the Sun386i was the inability to
> >support PC peripherals.  The system was pretty much a PC with some custom
> >hardware.
> 
> ....and custom PROM; it had an old-style Sun PROM monitor, not a PC-style
> BIOS.


If you posted this to the net, I missed it.  I'll try and get this
corrected.  Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

	Rex Ballard
	http://www.access.digex.net/~rballard
	this correspondence is personal opinion
	and does not necessarily reflect any corporate view.
	copyright 1998  - Rex Ballard



From rballard@access1.digex.net Thu Sep  3 16:13:48 1998
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