Caldera releases original unices under BSD license

q[alex] writes "Caldera International has done a very good thing. They have released the "Ancient" Unices they inherited when they purchased SCO under a "BSD-style" license. The license is available here, instructions on finding the source are here. Caldera (and before that SCO) had required people to obtain a free (as in beer) but somewhat restrictive license in order to get these old sources. The new BSD-style licensing only applies to the 16-bit PDI-11 versions and some of the early 32-bit releases (excluding System III and System V), but it's still very cool."

Comments

Re:Why is this cool?

[twilight30]

Historical purposes. Developmental and teaching purposes, more importantly.

Plaintext license

[jensend]

Here's the text of the license before it gets slashdotted or for those who don't want to bother with PDF:

January 23, 2002
Dear UNIX enthusiasts,
Caldera International, Inc. hereby grants a fee free license that includes the rights use, modify and distribute this named source code, including creating derived binary products created from the source code. The source code for which Caldera
International, Inc. grants rights are limited to the following UNIX Operating Systems that operate on the 16-Bit PDP-11 CPU and early versions of the 32-Bit UNIX Operating System, with specific exclusion of UNIX System III and UNIX System V and successor operating systems: 32-bit 32V UNIX
16 bit UNIX Versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Caldera International, Inc. makes no guarantees or commitments that any source code is available from Caldera International, Inc.
The following copyright notice applies to the source code files for which this license is granted.
Copyright(C) Caldera International Inc. 2001-2002. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the
following conditions are met: Redistributions of source code and documentation must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes software developed or owned by Caldera International, Inc.
Neither the name of Caldera International, Inc. nor the names of other contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
USE OF THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED FOR UNDER THIS LICENSE BY CALDERA INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL CALDERA INTERNATIONAL, INC. BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Very truly yours,
/signed/ Bill Broderick
Bill Broderick
Director, Licensing Services

* UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries.

Re:I don't understand...

[BankofAmerica_ATM]

Linux is built from the ground up to resemble UNIX, but technically speaking, it's not a UNIX. It doesn't have a line of source code from the original Unices (AFAIK). So, no need to get permission!

Original UNIX Source

[rusti999]

Wanna see the original UNIX source? Check this book.

Yuck - Old style BSD license

[elbuddha]

Their "BSD-style" license is actually the old-style BSD license, which includes the particularly onerous Advertising Clause:

All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes software developed or owned by Caldera International, Inc.

What most people think of now as the BSD license does not contain such a clause, and has not for quite some time.

Re:Yuck - Old style BSD license

[bugg]

Both you and the other poster in response to the parent are quite mistaken about what the advertising clause means.

Copyright reproduction clauses exist in *every* version of the BSD license. The license & copyright must be reproduced with the product regardless of the advertising clause. What the advertising clause does is require that in any advertisement for the product, that credit is given. This can be interpreted to apply to things like newspaper ads, where at the bottom they'd have to say "contains code copyright regents of the university of california" or in a radio ad, where they'd have to have one of the voices giving credit... this makes per-word advertising impossible.

Copyright reproduction clauses are good, advertising clauses are bad. There are webpages out there that can cover the issue in more detail than what I just described.

KARMA WHORE ++

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT DOWN!

But not the good stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

excluding System III and System V

so in other words.. useless..

seriously, in this day and age, how can the System V source NOT be released!

oh well, might be interesting to look at the really old stuff, to get some insight into Dennis Ritche.. ;)

BSD code

[MavEtJu]

If you want to have access to the Ancient BSD source codes, have a look at CSRG Archive CD-ROMs.

I wonder if there are archives of mailing-lists also, since you can't use code without comments :-)

This license has the dreaded advertising clause

[yerricde]

this is incredibly useful especially for GNU developers who have made gnu reimplementations of these software. now they can get rid of some of BSD code in the GNU Tools

Wrong. These tools are licensed under the Old BSD license, which includes an advertising clause: "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes software developed or owned by Caldera International, Inc." According to RMS, an advertising clause makes a license incompatible with GNU GPL.

Re:I've been using this same software for a year n

[Anonymous Coward]

Try compiling:

ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Sims/Supnik_2.3 /s ources/sim_2.3d

build the pdp11 emulator.

download an image of the v5 root partition and save the contents below to a file named v5init:

set cpu 18b
att rk0 v5root
boot rk

from the shell, type "pdp11 v5init". at the boot prompt, type "unix".

Voila. Remember that "cd" doesn't work, but "chdir" does. The only thing coming close to a backspace key is the # key.

Re:I've been using this same software for a year n

[Anonymous Coward]

v6init:

set cpu 18b
set rl0 RL02
att rl0 unix_v6.rl02
boot rl0

At the boot prompt, you should also type "unix".

v7init:

set cpu 18b
set rl0 RL02
att rl0 v7_rl02_1145
boot rl0

This time, at the boot prompt, you first type "boot". At the second boot prompt, type:

rl(0,0)rl2unix

and if that doesn't work,

rl(0,0)rlunix

or

rl(0,0)unix

have fun!

Re:I don't understand...

[shepd]

Linux isn't UN*X until someone pays for the trademark.

Until then it is reaching for 100% POSIX compliance.

So no, due to that little fact (and a whopping load of others), there is no way Linus got permission to make his own version of Unix simply because he wouldn't cough up the cash for the UN*X trademark.

The story (AFAIK) basically goes that he wasn't too happy with what he saw in computing back when he was using university computers in '91. He asked digital and intel for machines on which to create a new operating system. Intel delivered first, so he started developing an operating system from scratch for the i386 that was similar to what he was used to at the university, but better for him, and (being self developed) free. When he told others (and Andy Tannenbaum (sp?) himself) he was initially laughed at until he coughed up the goods, at which point development snowballed into what is today known as Linux.

Unfortunately for Tannenbaum, he decided to keep his Minix O/S tied to his books, and therefore it has all but died. Too bad, really, since the book isn't that bad of a read, and reasonably priced (for a university level computer book) and at the time Minix was far superior to Linux.