
Alcatel-Lucent releases source for 8th, 9th and 10th editions of Unix - adamnemecek
http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/
======
stonogo
The people complaining that this isn't free-as-in-freedom should remember that
there's a lot of code in here that Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent does not and has never
owned. 10th edition, specifically, was never 'distributed' and probably could
not be because it contained gcc. You'll note these archives are not even
hosted by the corporation. They STILL aren't 'distributing' any of this.
There's no way to know a priori whether there's someone else's IP in here...
the packaging method for these versions of unix was "Dennis makes a copy of a
running system, including whatever happened to be on that disk."

So, this is a kind gesture made for the benefit of software archaeologists.
Retroactively applying some kind of modern-hippie license would cost a
tremendous amount of time and money.

~~~
codys
Folks aren't necessarily complaining about the release, rather, the issue was
with the title which previously incorrectly called the release "open source".
HN admins have since changed the title, see comments further down.

~~~
gkya
Maybe there needs to be a "title history" feature, which lists the revisions
to the title below the actual title. Would end many confusions.

------
tytso
Technically Acatel-Lucent didn't release source. They simply agreed not to sue
over the source releases in question. The folks made the source available
online have been holding onto those sources for years, and have been
collecting copyright non-assertion letters from various companies who might
have an IP interest source in the sources. Acatel-Lucent is just the most
recent company who agreed that they aren't going to sue.

This is roughly the same as signing a quit-claim deed. How much significance
it has depends on how strong your previous ownership interest was in whatever
you are saying you won't sue over. (For example, if I sign a quit-claim
assertion over the Brooklyn Bridge, it doesn't mean much. :-)

But given this was sufficient so that the people who had been keeping private
copies of Unix source, confident enough that they wouldn't be sued into
oblivion, it's certainly significant in that sense.

------
mindcrime
This isn't open source, as the "no commercial use" violates a central tenet
(#6) of the Open Source Defintion[1].

I believe this would be closer to "Shared Source"[2] than anything else.

[1]: [https://opensource.org/osd-annotated](https://opensource.org/osd-
annotated)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source)

~~~
gingerbread-man
Where is Richard Stallman when you need him? This thread seems indefensibly
void of "free" vs. "open-source" software ranting. (Seriously though, the
restrictive license on this is really a bummer.)

~~~
justin66
> Seriously though, the restrictive license on this is really a bummer.

I question how much it really matters. If you wanted to create something like
xv6 (the x86 remix of sixth edition Unix), you wouldn't want to keep too much
of the original code anyway, would you?

~~~
gkya
Most of the C code I saw there are full of ancient practices, for one, I
haven't seen a single #include in about ten or more files I looked at (IDK if
CPP existed at all).

------
bigato
Link to the original Alcatel-Lucent statement: [https://media-bell-labs-
com.s3.amazonaws.com/pages/20170327_...](https://media-bell-labs-
com.s3.amazonaws.com/pages/20170327_1602/statement%20regarding%20Unix%203-7-17.pdf)

------
Esau
This is a little off topic but I want to take a moment and say thank you to
Warren Toomey. He is responsible for TUHS and it is a wonder resource for
people who enjoy UNIX.

Thank you sir!!

------
EamonnMR
Should be a boon to this project to create a git history of Unix:

[https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-
repo](https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo)

(previous discussion:)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10995483](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10995483)

------
f2f
The README indicates that there are files for 1st and 2nd Plan 9 editions but
those are not made available. [1] I guess Lucent's lawyers still want to keep
their rights over those...

I have a shrink-wrapped 2nd edition distribution with manuals, but no source
:(

\--

1:
[http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dan_Cross...](http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dan_Cross_v10/README)

------
cat199
Sweet..

So.. Anyone have any insight on what these actually provide, feature wise over
v7?

Have often wondered about these 'mystery unices'..

Am sure I will trawl the source archives.. but pointers would be useful.

~~~
4ad
/proc, user-level filesystems (used for netb/netfs, and i think upas too),
dmr's streams (not STREAMS), and a whole TCP/IP and DataKit stack using
streams different from BSD's networking stack, the rc shell used later in Plan
9 (somehome missing from these archives though), mk (also used in Plan 9),
upas (also used in Plan 9), GUI on the blit/jerk terminal, the sam text
editor, and a lot of other stuff that I'm forgetting right now.

~~~
cat199
Cheers..

Just also found this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Unix#Versions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Unix#Versions)

durr...

~~~
4ad
Note that many of the details on wikipedia are wrong, especially time-wise.
Now with the source available it's a good time to correct them, however.

------
4ad
TUHS announcement:
[http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2017-March/009354.html](http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2017-March/009354.html)

------
t1m
Back when I was in University, we had an Amdahl mainframe with Unix running
under VM. The directory structure included an awful lot of source code. I
remember porting source for lex and yacc to my PC-XT running Borland's Turbo
C. I assume it was licensed to Universities and source was included under an
educational clause, though I'm not exactly sure.

I wonder which version of unix I was using. This would have been around
December of '87.

~~~
hapless
It was either CMS (a single-user UNIX-like commonly distributed with VM) or
VM/IX aka AIX/370 (an IBM-flavored SysV, but almost totally unrelated to the
other AIX products.)

------
fermigier
Good news, but it's not open source. The statement at the root of the projects
says only:

"[...] that it will not assert its copyright rights with respect to any non-
commercial copying, distribution, performance, display or creation of
derivative works of Research Unix®".

------
f2f
ahh, the gems one finds in old source code: /games/trek/trek.h:

    
    
        #define ever (;;)

~~~
vram22
#define never (; 1 < 0;)

for never { foo(); }

~~~
darkf
Why not just `#define never (;0;)`? It even looks like an alien emoticon.

~~~
vram22
True, that's better, should have thought of it :)

------
aap_
These are the operating systems the Blit
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr1XXvSaVUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr1XXvSaVUQ))
was used with.

~~~
luckydude
We had BLITs at Wisconsin talking to a VAX running some 4BSD release, might
have been Uwisc-BSD.

~~~
4ad
Are you sure it wasn't a DMD-5620 (also called the "jerk") and not a blit?

------
loeg
Note that this is not available under a conventional open source license, but
one of the "non-commercial use" variety. Don't rush to incorporate it into
your products ;-).

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we've updated the title from “Alcatel-Lucent open sources 8th, 9th and
10th Editions of Unix”.

------
sigjuice
Is it too soon to ask the question if it is possible to compile these and run
them in some emulator?

~~~
4ad
We got v8 (for VAX) running in SIMH. We could probably bootstrap v10 from that
on the same emulated hardware.

We also have a blit emulator, but it's for Plan 9 only at the moment.

It's unclear whether there exists a sun m68k emulator that could run v9.

~~~
scruffyherder
Yes there is, it's called TME, and it runs fine!

[https://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2017/04/01/rese...](https://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2017/04/01/research-
unix-v9/)

------
Nokinside
Title should be: Nokia releases source for 8th, 9th and 10th editions of Unix.

Nokia bought Alcatel-Lucent over year ago. See for yourself:
[http://www.alcatel-lucent.com](http://www.alcatel-lucent.com)

------
digi_owl
> Nokia Bell Laboratories

The paths of mergers and acquisitions are indeed meandering.

------
jlebrech
i'd love to see code standards comparison dones for similar code, how does
open source stack up.

------
cmrdporcupine
Awesome... But only at least 25 years too late...

------
ScalaNovice
A better title would be:

Alcatel-Lucent makes the source code of 8th, 9th and 10th Editions of Unix
public

Since the general usage of the word open source has implications about the a
"free" license to use too.

~~~
dragonwriter
Well, specifically, it implies an open source license under the OSI
definition, which happens to be almost identical in a licenses covered to the
Free Software definition from the FSF.

~~~
ternaryoperator
It might to you, but it shouldn't. The definition of open source is _not_
controlled by the OSI; they only organize licenses and certify licenses as
OSI-approved. However, you don't need an OSI-approved license to be open
source. There are many open source packages that are not under an OSI license
--most famously, SQLite.

*edited for clarity and a typo.

~~~
andrewshadura
Well, since they invented the term, to a certain degree they do.

~~~
ternaryoperator
They didn't invent the term. The term was invented first. The OSI was founded
later. See the OSI's own post on this [1].

A much more detailed discussion of the origin of the term and its initial use
appears here [2]. The latter link in particular is interesting reading,
because it includes the political dimensions (especiall w.r.t O'Reilly's
difficulties with the FSF).

[1] [https://opensource.org/history](https://opensource.org/history) [2]
[http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch11.html](http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch11.html)

