16 Mar
2017
16 Mar
'17
5:55 a.m.
On 2017 Mar 15, 15:45, Clem Cole wrote:
SVR4 (aka UnixWare) was available for source - the problem is many people
did like the price to see it. It was $100K. But the source was available
it was open and many, many of people with PC and had access to it, wrote
drivers for it etc. There were books published about it. It was hardly
secret.
Nobody says UNIX source code was "secret". It just was not open after
UNIX began to be directly sold by AT&T post Bell-breakage.
If UNIX source code was "open" at $100K, then Windows NT source code can
also be seen as open if you have enough money to buy Microsoft.
Just saying please don't say UNIX was not Open.
It was. Unix was not
Free.
I beg to differ. UNIX stopped being open when the Lion's book could not
be legally sold anymore at bookstores. That happened even earlier than
System V, it happened when AT&T released V7. The reason that AT&T stated
was that they wanted to keep "UNIX source code" as a "trade secret".
So this begs the question: how can something, anything, be at the same
time "open" and a "trade secret"?
No doubt some argumentation can be concocted to marry both concepts, but
I have that feeling it's going to be a hard one to swallow.
To me, open means libre access, because if there is no libre access, then
it is what is known as closed.
Please note that libre access --when applied to source code-- does not
necessarily mean "up for grabs and redistribution" - it just means libre
access to random eyeballs in meatspace.
--
Josh Good