4 ms·
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 ow
by stonogo 10y ago
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.
- codys 10y agoFolks 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.
- gkya 10y agoMaybe there needs to be a "title history" feature, which lists the revisions to the title below the actual title. Would end many confusions.
- 4ad 10y agoV10 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.
- DeepYogurt 10y agoSo you can't use the code to make money. Who cares? You can still learn from the design of this stuff.
- monocasa 10y agoWhile 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.
- Twisell 10y agoAlso it is for a reason that the term FOSS had emerged because unlike "Open-Source" it's not subject to interpretation depending on your agenda.
- jle17 10y ago"Open Source" isn't supposed to be subject to interpretation. For something to be Open Source it has to follow the OSI Open Source definition.
- Twisell 10y agoGo tell that to companies that deliver crippled unusable community edition only so they can put an Open-Source sticker on their paying premium product...
- behnamoh 10y ago"Software archaeologists" 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.