4.2BSD, RCS and SCCS

[Greg Woods]

  Since it seems to have raised so much controversey, even though I cancelled
the original article because I feared trouble from my management after I found
out we might have been (we aren't) running SCCS illegally, I will post here
what I have found out. SCCS cannot be distributed by Berkeley due to licensing
problems. 4.?BSD requires only a UNIX/32V license, but SCCS requires a PWB 
or System III/V license. (For the record, we have a PWB license for our 11/70
(site hao), and a system III license for our VAXen). RCS is public domain, which
means anyone who has a UNIX license of any kind who can get ahold of sources
and/or binaries can run it. The conversion program "sccstorcs" almost works.
Under 4.1a, at least, it has a serious bug which I have been told has been
fixed in 4.2, but I haven't had an opportunity to verify that. The bug comes
in when the SCCS file has removed deltas in it. Every subsequent RCS delta
after that has the wrong descriptive comment associated with it, although
the file contents appear to be OK. 
  Hope this answers the questions for all those who mailed me "tell me what
you find out". I still do not know if we will need SCCS. I personally
converted to RCS already. It was easier than I thought it would be and
RCS is somewhat faster. However, we do have some library stuff that is
currently maintained with SCCS, I will have to see if anyone here feels
that we need it.

			GREG
-- 
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