Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!decvax!wanginst!ucadmus!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!root%bostonu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa From: BostonU SysMgrNewsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: UNIX source vs. binary (NOT A LEGAL ARGUMENT) Message-ID: <7982@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Sun, 3-Feb-85 20:40:23 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.7982 Posted: Sun Feb 3 20:40:23 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 02:18:53 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 43 I think there is a possibly productive contribution that could come out of all these electrons flying by about AT&T source policies. It just hit me full force as I was left with a few 3B machines with a binary distribution on them (the source is in the mail) and now I gotta set them up. In the old days (less now) DEC would give a binary site for certain (most) O/S's quite a few sources, recognizing that this is necessary for survival. I think that there are quite a few programs/source modules that MUST be supplied with a UNIX distribution for survival. I realize a few of these are supplied with SOME distributions, but not enough. Assuming somebody from AT&T is listening (or could get the right person to listen) maybe someone could collect arguments for certain selected sources from us unix-wizards and consider why we are so upset/frightened by binary only systems. DON'T JUST START SENDING YOUR ARGUMENTS TO THIS LIST, they'll just get lost. Sample arguments: login.c,su.c: This is the front-line of defense passwd.c: for any system. I should be able to add rules like times of day for certain uids or secondary/long passwords. getty.c: This often needs a little customization to work properly in a given environment. init.c: same. All accounting summary software: C'mon, it isn't likely to be exactly right for my site. A few drivers: tty.c and friends for a little customization. A disk and/or tape device for examples if your binary claims to support addition of user drivers (an LP driver wouldn't hurt.) I think these are reasonable arguements, at least maybe a package of these could be sold inexpensively and unbundled from full source. I am not sure I really need the sources to, eg., cat.c to support my system.