Gordon Messmer wrote:


Our entire history of science and engineering is Open.


Getting way off topic here, but I think you are way too optimistic in
your view of this. A huge part of science and engineering work has
historically been done for military purposes and kept closed for as long
as possible - tcp/ip being both an example and something of an exception
in terms of subsequent openness.


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All mainstream distro's are not listed . this could be allowance of
restricted or copyrighted codecs .
<qoute>
"which only include and only propose free software. They reject
non-free applications, non-free programming platforms, non-free
drivers, or non-free firmware "blobs"
</qoute>
interesting .!!
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On Thu, 17 Jul 2008, Gordon Messmer wrote:


John Burton wrote:

<<snip>>
I forgot to point out that Free Software is most definitely the traditional
development method. When GNU was started, it was in response to a change
from the traditional method to a black-box distribution method for software.


Our entire history of science and engineering is Open. Understanding the way
things work has been the hallmark of our development as a society. Don't
forget that.


I wish that lawyers and other such could/would understand that last
paragraph. Understanding how things work seems to help the society that
supports us. Secrecy, and secrecy in the name of security or safety set us
back towards dark ages.


IMHO of course, YMMV.

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> From: Gordon Messmer
>
> Our entire history of science and engineering is Open.

If by *open*, you mean openly and freely shared, nope. Historically,
that has *never* been true.

If you mean freely ( as in liberally ) used for one's own benefit, then
yeah, it was open. :O

> Understanding the way things work has been the hallmark of our
development as a
> society.


OK, I'll buy that. But, that does not mean it was open.



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Gordon Messmer wrote:

John Cornelius wrote:
This discussion is becoming both increasingly religious and somewhat
oblique in its depictions of the elements under discussion. It may be
instructive to review the classic definitions of some of these
elements in order to clarify in the minds of zealots from the several
sides of the discussion and thereby promote a more rational discussion.


Can you cite any consensus based definition of "operating system"
other than what you've provided? I think that the POSIX specification
is generally agreed to be the definition of one operating system
interface, and it includes the shells, editors, compilers, etc that
you've decided aren't part of an operating system.
I suppose that would be because the writers of the POSIX specification
didn't think it through. Consider that 'bash' does not need Linux, Unix,
Tops10, VMS or any other specific operating system to provide the
environment that can be used to launch other programs effectively. It
can run on virtually any computer that offers the necessary system calls
and has a C compiler including Windows.


POSIX, in fact, specifies an environment rather than an operating system
and for its purposes, which is to provide a template for government
bureaucrats to use when selecting an environment, it is quite satisfactory.


That's what we're getting at. GNU/Linux is an operating system.
Linux is one of the kernels that GNU *can* use, and one of the most
common that it does.


GNU is not an operating system it is, and as far as I know always has
been, a tool kit that is platform and operating system independent.


I think that the GNU developers disagree with you. What makes your
opinion more valid than theirs?
Perhaps they do and they are free to do so but they are incorrect and
your own argument makes the point. You are trying to separate the kernel
(and its related facilities) from the operating system and, if you stop
to think about it, that's both counterproductive and obfuscatory. As for
what makes my opinion better than theirs, there may be no reason to
believe that I believe that only that I find the GNU Operating System
concept illogical and irrational.


It may be an ego thing on the part of GNU that they want to have an
operating system of their own but they sell themselves short in doing
so. The creation and purveyance of quality and useful software is in
itself a noble and admirable thing and they are no less noble and
admirable for providing necessary tools and applications rather than an
operating system.


GNU is not Linux and Linux is not GNU, it's just an evolution of a
movement started by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie nearly 40 years ago.


Whoda thunk?


I think you're giving Ken and Dennis too much credit. As far as I
understand it, Unix was only distributed free of charge because ATT
was concerned that its monopoly status prevented it from entering new
markets. Look at Plan 9. Free Software? Nope.
Perhaps you should expand your understanding a bit. Unix was distributed
free of charge to universities for much the same reason that GNU and
Fedora exist, namely to get participation of skilled programmers and
architects in making the system useful beyond the way that operating
systems of the day were useful. Toward that end they gave the product
away to universities and I was privileged to have the very first
distribution sent to the University of California. I was required to
redistribute it within the University and maintain the licenses on
AT&T's behalf. I shipped UC Berkeley its first copy of Unix sometime in
the 1970s and the rest is history.


AT&T did indeed sell licenses to commercial entities and they were not
concerned that it would effect their ongoing monopoly problems with the
Feds since they did not have a monopoly in the computer business. Unix
was never intended to be free, unlike Linux, and it was their hope that
they could challenge IBM with the product.


I do not give Kenny and Denny too much credit, if anything I have not
given them enough credit. During a conversation with Ken Thompson I
asked him why they had chosen Interdata as a platform to migrate Unix to
rather than the VAX and he replied that the VAX wasn't different enough
(from the PDP-11), that they wanted to prove a point and in order to do
so they had to port to a radically different machine. The challenge was
there and they met it but unfortunately Interdata did not, may they rest
in peace.


GNU modeled its operating system after Unix because it was a common
system, not because there was any particular sharing of ideals or goals.
Even so, the model used by GNU is derivative of the model used by AT&T
to advance development of and on the Unix platform. Admittedly, that
does not make it Unix but then Unix isn't GNU.


John Cornelius

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Gordon Messmer wrote:

John Burton wrote:
Okay, here are a couple of questions I haven't seen answered. There
are several "license" schemes put forth for Open Source software. GPL
and BSD are two that come to mind immediately. The purpose of "open
source" is to counter the traditional closed source model of software.


I forgot to point out that Free Software is most definitely the
traditional development method. When GNU was started, it was in
response to a change from the traditional method to a black-box
distribution method for software.


Our entire history of science and engineering is Open. Understanding
the way things work has been the hallmark of our development as a
society. Don't forget that.

Amen!

John Cornelius

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Gordon Messmer wrote:

John Cornelius wrote:
This discussion is becoming both increasingly religious and somewhat
oblique in its depictions of the elements under discussion. It may be
instructive to review the classic definitions of some of these
elements in order to clarify in the minds of zealots from the several
sides of the discussion and thereby promote a more rational discussion.


Can you cite any consensus based definition of "operating system"
other than what you've provided? I think that the POSIX specification
is generally agreed to be the definition of one operating system
interface, and it includes the shells, editors, compilers, etc that
you've decided aren't part of an operating system.


That's what we're getting at. GNU/Linux is an operating system.
Linux is one of the kernels that GNU *can* use, and one of the most
common that it does.


You can go back to the "Text Book" definition from Andrew Tennebaum
(sp?) who wrote the text book on Operating Systems used by most CS
courses. That definition is pretty close to what John originally
described. This parallels my original question of what causes people to
claim the O/S is "GNU/Linux". While I certainly agree that there are
alot of GNU tools packaged with Linux, those tools are also used by alot
of other O/Ss that people are not making similar claims about...
GNU is not an operating system it is, and as far as I know always has
been, a tool kit that is platform and operating system independent.


I think that the GNU developers disagree with you. What makes your
opinion more valid than theirs?


I will agree that the GNU stuff provides a rich operating *environment*
for the user, but an operating *system* is more concerned with the
underlying hardware. Here *environment* = user space, *system* = system
space.


As far as GNU developers opinion goes, theirs doesn't matter any more
than mine or yours. I can claim that my set of tools is an O/S, but that
doesn't make it an O/S. What matters is where those tools fit in the
multi-layered "onion" of software that stands between the user and the
actual hardware that they are using.
GNU is not Linux and Linux is not GNU, it's just an evolution of a
movement started by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie nearly 40 years ago.


Whoda thunk?


I think you're giving Ken and Dennis too much credit. As far as I
understand it, Unix was only distributed free of charge because ATT
was concerned that its monopoly status prevented it from entering new
markets. Look at Plan 9. Free Software? Nope.
What does Plan 9 have to do with anything? Unix was started at AT&T by
Thompson & Ritchie. It then branched into two "flavors" BSD and SYSV.
POSIX was a much later attempt to bring the 2 branches back together by
imposing "standards" on the tools and interfaces. SunOS, Solaris, AIX,
Irix, Ultrix, are all company specific offshoots with varying degrees of
adherence to POSIX standards and SYSV or BSD flavors... Thompson &
Ritchie started the whole thing rolling, and thousands of developers
have contributed to the evolution of what UNIX (broad category covering
all systems based on the UNIX concept) is today.





GNU modeled its operating system after Unix because it was a common
system, not because there was any particular sharing of ideals or goals.
My understanding of FSF/GNU development is that HURD was their attempt
at an O/S - which included the "kernel" plus the next several layers of
networking / files system / virtual memory / video / security / syslog /
daemon / etc utilities (next step above the drivers) that are needed by
the GNU tools to provide a user friendly system. The GNU tools are what
are used by Linux, *not* the HURD O/S...


The question is, above the hardware driver level, does FSF/GNU provide
the networking, file system, virtual memory, video, security, etc
utilities used by Linux? If not, then they have no business claiming the
status of an O/S.


John


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Les Mikesell wrote:

Gordon Messmer wrote:


Our entire history of science and engineering is Open.


Getting way off topic here, but I think you are way too optimistic in
your view of this. A huge part of science and engineering work has
historically been done for military purposes and kept closed for as
long as possible - tcp/ip being both an example and something of an
exception in terms of subsequent openness.
I disagree somewhat. When ARPA sponsored the ARPANET the information was
both public and available. It had to be in order to get universities to
round it out and prove the concepts.


That does not mean, of course, that there is not a secret network
running today that has features that you and I would die for but there
is an amazing amount of information available if you know where to look.
Besides, very few things are as fragile as technical advantages and it
takes only a bright idea to gain one more.


John Cornelius

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> You could, however, get a license for BSD for a LOT less ($5k, I think),
> and that's what a LOT of people did (including Sun, DEC, IBM, Data
> General, Silicon Graphics and others too many to name).

BSD required an AT&T license for V7.

Alan

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Les Mikesell wrote:

Rick Stevens wrote:



Yup. But IIRC back then BSD was still largely encumbered by AT&T UNIX
code. Otherwise GNU might have never been started as such: BSD could
have been the Free operating system of choice.


Technically BSD was built at the University of California, Berkeley from
UNIX System 7 source from Bell Labs (then part of AT&T). Since they
made changes and such, the Regents of University of California held
copyright over what was then called "Berkeley Standard Distribution" or
BSD. Note that anyone using BSD could NOT call their OS "Unix" as they
did NOT have permission from AT&T.


The history is really much more complex than this. Wikipedia has a nice
graphic of how the open/commercial parts developed at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix. But basically since the
government-regulated monopoly (AT&T) that did the initial work could not
sell it directly, they licensed it for research purposes to universities
where the original BSD additions were components that had to be
installed on top of the AT&T code.


I've known Wikipedia stuff to be wrong and part of this is. In the old
days, you couldn't call it "Unix" unless you had a source code license
from Bell Labs (not AT&T). I know, I was involved in the negotiations
our company had with BL to get System V source. They wanted, IIRC, $50K
in 1982. We said "too much, guys."

You could, however, get a license for BSD for a LOT less ($5k, I think),
and that's what a LOT of people did (including Sun, DEC, IBM, Data
General, Silicon Graphics and others too many to name).


This is what gave rise to SunOS,
Solaris, Ultrix, Irix, AIX, and damned near every other thing that
sounded vaguely like Unix and had an "x" in it. They're all BSD
derivatives and carried a license from the Regents.


When the AT&T monopoly was sensibly split up, it was then able to
license directly to the other commercial vendors and developed its own
retail version. Subsequently the BSD contributions were incorporated
into AT&T's SysVr4 which became the base for most of the commercially
licensed versions and simultaneously the *bsd side rewrote the original
AT&T portions to have a freely distributable version. An AT&T lawsuit
against BSDI over this failed, but greatly hampered acceptance and use
of this free code at precisely the time that Linux became available and
almost worked. You probably know the rest.


Yes. And SVR4.2 was the multi-processor basecode for much commercial
stuff. I don't think you could use "Unix" since the copyright was still

held by Bell Labs. It was later sold to another entity (can't recall
the name offhand--something like "Unix System Labs") and they were just
about as persnickety as you could get. Virtually no one bought their
attitude and so the name Unix sorta fell out of style.

Many companies DID use SVR4.2 as the base for later versions of their
OSes. Sun's Solaris (SunOS 5.x) is SVR4.2-based, whereas the original
SunOS (SunOS 4.x) was BSD-based. They renamed it Solaris to
differentiate it from the BSD-based earlier OS. DG's later versions of
their DG/UX was SVR4.2-based. The first PC-esque SVR4.2 I used was on a
(blast from the past) Amiga 2000 (Motorola 68020), followed by "E-NIX"
(from Everex Computers) on actual i386 hardware.

DEC got so pissed off at the Unix title owner that they went to OSF/1
(Mach-based) for the Alpha products (eventually called "Tru64") and
dropped BSD and SVR4.2 completely.
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