RCS question

[Paul Jackson]

mogenix at tdisys.UUCP (MOGENET) writes:
>From: "Emmanuel Mogenet" <mogenix%tdisys at inria.inria.fr>
>I'd like to add a few questions [about RCS]:
>
>	1. What exact version of RCS is SGI supplying ?

The version of RCS currently supplied by SGI
is derived from RCS 3.?, which Walter Tichy,
while at Purdue, supplied to Berkeley for
free distribution in BSD, circa 1983-4.

>	2. As RCS is a GNU software, what juridical maze allowed
>		SGI not to provide the sources ?

Sometime later, Walter coordinated the distribution of
RCS with the Free Software Foundation for more recent
(than version 3) versions of RCS.

Versions 4.x and 5.x are subject to GNU style licensing,
not version 3.x

When SGI delivers versions of RCS derived from 4.x or 5.x
we will make source available, in accordance with the GNU
license terms

>	3. I met the same problems when jointly using the SGI version of
>	RCS, and the V4.5 obtained from GNUU, on an IBM RS/6000.The question
>	is: what am I supposed to do ?

Individual ,v files produced by V4.x RCS can be
made readable by V3.x by deleting line 2 "branch ..."

SGI intends to continue supplying more current
versions of RCS is future major software releases.

If the RCS folks had not introduced the "branch"
incompatibility between V3.x and V4.x (which error
is corrected as best it can be in V5.x), then
these sorts of incompatibilities wouldn't have been.

				I won't rest till it's the best ...
				Software Production Engineer
				Paul Jackson (pj at asd.sgi.com), x1373