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Caldera releases original unices under BSD license

Posted by Nik on from the born-free dept.

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."

7 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Great! by twilight30 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Never would have thought Caldera would have done something as community-oriented as this, given their history of late.

    However, a big thank-you from this Slashdot reader for their act. I appreciate it, and I know I'm not alone...

    --
    ========================================
    Death will come, and will have your eyes
    -- Pavese
  2. Why is this cool? by SpookComix · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    I don't mean to sound like a stick in the mud here, but why exactly is this cool? This source code was obviously available before, for people who actually needed it. Why, then, is the simple fact that anyone can get to it now a "cool" thing?

    Will this spawn development of breakthrough products? Will this help administrators of these old system finally take control of their network?

    Or is this just another geek trophy to have, print, wave around over coffee, and ultimately collect dust on shelves full of other useless time-wasting trinkets?

    --SC

    --
    You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
    1. Re:Why is this cool? by Stan+Chesnutt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is great to have this available for study. And, this might inspire a whole new generation of PDP-11 emulators so you can sit down and actually run the original bits (emulation of an ASR-33 not considered mandatory).

      Computer Science would also be served well if the original Multics sources/binaries were released. Although it would be much harder to write a Honeywell emulator!

    2. Re:Why is this cool? by supabeast! · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Will this spawn development of breakthrough products? Will this help administrators of these old system finally take control of their network?"

      Yes and yes. Now developers can do just about anything with the code, and the being able to do so will allow for bettered versions of the original code to replace some of the still antiquated code out there with newer, better versions, as well as improving interoperability with those ancient programs and newer stuff.

  3. I've been using this same software for a year now by buckrogers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    to play around with the old Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition with source code by John Lions.

    It is amazing how much you can learn from this old stuff. And now we can discuss, modify, and share the code with each other.

    This is really great! Thanks Caldera!

    --
    -- Never make a general statement.
  4. Re:Yuck - Old style BSD license by cthugha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And giving credit where credit's due is a bad thing why, exactly? One of the key motivations for doing Open Source/Free software is the kudos you get, so I really have no problem with authors requiring that licensees not pass the work off as their own.

  5. Reading the install notes..... by Jester99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    is really amazing.

    If you ignore the instructions for copying the system from magtape to disk (!), everything else looks very similar to the install notes for most modern unices today....

    They tell you to 'cat' files to the printer, 'tar' together items for backup storage, 'sync' before you turn the machine off, and remember to check 'df' regularly to make sure your users don't fill up the disk, and clean out the /tmp directory periodically.

    Reading documentation written 30 years ago which almost hasn't changed at all is really a beautiful thing. (Well, some things have changed. During bootup, the 'mem' line reports user-available memory in bytes. :)

    Hats off to the developers of a system which is so flexible that hasn't really needed interface changing at all to adapt to 30 years of great changes in computer design and usage!