Summary of responses to SystemVrel3 license poll

[Rich Salz]

Around March 20 I asked who had signed or refused to sign the AT&T System
V Release 3.0 source license.  We are currently discussing the issue
within BBN.  (It's a bit tricky for us since some of the research folks
(i.e., BBN labs) want to get Sun3.4 source, while the commercial folks
(i.e., BBNACI/Butterfly are concerned about the SVID nonsense.)

The heart of the matter is that the V.3 license says the following:
 (ii)	After June 30, 1988, if LICENSEE offers a SUBLICENSED
	PRODUCT containing a portion of the BASE System such
	SUBLICENSED PRODUCT must conform to the entire BASE
	system as defined in SVID2.
Elsewhere it says that AT&T can test OEMs for compliance and require
them to withdraw the product if it fails the test.  Note that some of
the wording, particularly definitions, are vague.

Someone told me AT&T source license sales dropped off, but
then came almost back to normal after about nine months.

The summary follows.  Since some folks requested anonymity, I took
off all the names.  The parenthetical quotes are taken from the
original mail messages.

Thanks to all who replied!
	/rich $alz

Universities that signed
========================
    Boston University ("we are not particularly a purveyor of software...")
    Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
    Ohio State
    Harvard University
    Northwestern ("wanted R3 for current SysV machines, wanted source")
    Armostrong State College ("we needed NFS and BSD source")
    University of Hawaii ("they probably didn't know what they were signing")

Universities that haven't signed
================================
    Lowell University won't upgrade on principle ("voting with my wallet")
    Northern Illinois University ("nobody here wants to use SysV")

    MIT ("As I understand it, one particularly objectionable
    part for the Institute concerns "export," since "export" includes discussing
    the system with foreign nationals.  Since many MIT students are from other
    countries, this causes problems.  I believe that there are some other
    problems as well.")

Companies that have signed
==========================
    NCR ("haven't released their port for most of their machines yet, though")
    Icon International ("SVID complaince is not a limtiation for us")
    National Semiconductor
    Data General

    BRL ("[also] have sublicensing agreements for both SVR2 and SVR3
    (our option).  For BRL internal use we do not have to assure SVID
    compliance.  I checked with AT&T licensing to make sure of this
    before we signed.")

    Kontron Electronics ("Unix Europe Limited license, which I guess is the
    same as the US version")

Companies that have not signed
==============================
    DEC ("we will not sign")
-- 
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