On 3 March 2017 at 18:56, Wesley Parish <wes.parish@paradise.net.nz> wrote:

And since the central Unix source trees have been static - I don't think Novell was much more than a
caretaker, correct me if I'm wrong - and the last SysVR4 release of any consequence was Solaris - has
Oracle done anything with it? - I think the best thing for all would be the release of the Unix SysV
source trees under a suitable open source license.

There was an SVR5, even if it was not nearly the popular product that its predecessors were. While development certainly slowed, it contained some amount of technological progression. Obviously at this point development has stopped completely and it probably does make sense to open source that code base.

(I've made a similar argument for the IBM/MS OS/2,
DEC VAX VMS, and MS Windows and WinNT 3.x and 4.x source trees on various other Internet forums:
the horse has bolted, it's a bit pointless welding shut the barn door now. Better to get the credit for
being friendly and open, and clear up some residual bugs while you're at it ... )

Equating VMS, old versions of Windows, etc. isn't quite the same. Even old versions of those products may well include source that contains, or is believed by its owners to contain, novel ideas or novel implementations of existing ideas that may have survived relatively unchanged in newer versions. And because there is at least a reasonably sized user base for all of the products you mentioned, corporate customers have an interest in protecting their investment, and the software creators have an interest in responding to the desires (or perceived desires) of their customers.

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see a legal release of the VMS 5 source, or Windows 3 source, or classic Macintosh source. I'm just not holding my breath. I think the community's time would be better spend advocating for source releases of products that are truly dead or all but dead.

-Henry