licensing software from Sun for other sparc machines

[Preston Mullen]

Since Sun has decided to push SPARCware (tm) as a generic concept and has
even licensed SunOS to other companies (e.g., Solbourne), will Sun put
this principle to the ultimate test by licensing unbundled Sun software
directly to an end user of one of these ABI-compatible machines?

For example, could an end user buy a license from Sun to use Sun's new C++
product (with special dbx and dbxtool), or its X.400 mailer, or NSE, or
SunPaint, on a Solbourne?

Similarly, will Sun extend its SunOS update licensing agreement to allow
SunOS updates to be used on non-Sun machines (as long as the appropriate
fee is paid, just as if the machine were a Sun)?

Some potential compatibility problems with Solbourne (and, I presume,
other vendors to come) are that they don't quite offer a complete SunOS (a
few things that are on the SunOS tapes are missing from their OS/MP, e.g.
dbxtool and mailtool), they don't offer many of Sun's unbundled software
products (and so far haven't promised that they will), they haven't been
too swift about tracking Sun's dot-dot releases, and it isn't obvious to
what extent Solbourne will re-license the new Sun software due out over
the next year or so.

Being able to buy Sun's software directly from Sun and to run most SunOS
application program updates would help ensure compatibility with an
installed base of Sun machines.

	Preston Mullen
	Information Technology Division
	Naval Research Laboratory

P.S.  We don't have a Solbourne.  I'd be interested in hearing directly
from people who do.  Most requests to this list for Solbourne experiences
seem to go unanswered.