The real OpenWindows source announcement
Peter Korp
SunFLASH Vol 23 #12 November 1990
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Package Includes Window System and Toolkits
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- November 13, 1990 -- Sun Microsystems
announced today that the source code for its OpenWindows(TM)
application development environment will now be available free of
charge (cost of media only -- $995). This means that hardware and
software developers will now have a cost-effective way to incorporate
OpenWindows -- including the easy-to-use OPEN LOOK(R) graphical user
interface -- into applications developed or ported to many platforms
from different vendors.
The package includes code for the X11/NeWs(TM) Window System, OPEN LOOK
toolkits, and OpenFonts(TM) with its TypeScaler(TM) technology. Before
today, only OpenWindows binaries were available from Sun.
"Offering free source code for the industry's most advanced,
comprehensive window environment demonstrates our ongoing commitment to
open systems," said Ed Zander, vice president of marketing at Sun.
Advanced Imaging Model
The X11/NeWS Window System that is part of the source package combines
a fully compliant X implementation with Sun's NeWS(R) technology, which
offers the most advanced PostScript(R) imaging model available today.
NeWS lets developers work with interactive, on-screen PostScript
graphics -- particularly useful for commercial applications such as
desktop publishing and multimedia.
Also part of the source code package is OpenFonts -- Sun's
nonproprietary font technology, which includes 57 scalable fonts.
OPEN LOOK Toolkits Provide Portability
The keys to OpenWindows' portability are two OPEN LOOK toolkits,
XView(TM) and the OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit (OLIT). XView is Sun's
X-based toolkit that gives developers an easy way to design new
applications with the OPEN LOOK graphical user interface, as well as to
migrate the 2,800 existing kernel-based SunView(TM) applications to the
networked window environment of OPEN LOOK and X.
The OLIT toolkit -- based on AT&T's OPEN LOOK toolkit (XT+) --
implements the OPEN LOOK look and feel and supports MIT Intrinsics.
The XView toolkit is also offered free on the X11 R4 tape available
from MIT. OpenWindows is a standard part of the industry's leading
UNIX(R) operating system, UNIX System V Release 4 from AT&T.
Since OPEN LOOK toolkits will be available for a range of platforms,
developers can standardize on a single graphical interface. Toolkits
from Sun and other vendors are available now or will be offered within
three months for UNIX workstations from Digital Equipment Corp.,
Hewlett-Packard and IBM, for VAX/VMS systems from Digital.
Availability
OpenWindows source code will be available January 1, 1991 on magnetic
tape for $995 (which includes the cost of media and documentation)
through Sun distributors. The source license is included at no cost.
There are no royalties for distributing applications developed with
OpenWindows. Hardware vendors will pay nominal royalties for systems
they resell that run the OpenWindows environment.
Sun Microsystems, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a
leading worldwide supplier of network-based distributed computing
systems, including professional workstations, servers and UNIX
operating system and productivity software.
###
OpenWindows, XView, X11/NeWS, OpenFonts and TypeScaler are trademarks
and NeWS is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. OPEN LOOK
and UNIX are registered trademarks of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. All other
products or services mentioned in this document are identified by the
trademarks or service marks of their respective companies or
organizations.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Cathleen Beall Garfield (415) 336-6536
Diana Murray OpenWindows Licensing Manager (415) 336-1567
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
wolf paul
>
>SunFLASH Vol 23 #12 November 1990
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>announced today that the source code for its OpenWindows(TM)
>application development environment will now be available free of
>charge (cost of media only -- $995).
Will Sun permit the redistribution of this source code via the usual
USENET channels, i.e. anon-ftp, anon-uucp, and archive servers?
What media does this come on that cost nearly $1000?
Note that I am not griping, just asking questions. I think it is
great of Sun to make this available, even at $1000.
--
Wolf N. Paul, UNIX SysAdmin, IIASA, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe
PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa!wnp
INTERNET: wnp%ii...@relay.eu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!w...@awiuni01.BITNET
Glen Fullmer
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- November 13, 1990 -- Sun Microsystems
announced today that the source code for its OpenWindows(TM)
application development environment will now be available free of
charge (cost of media only -- $995). This means that hardware and
^^^^^
Expensive media! Ok, I understand -- its the pay that Sun gives its
tape operators! ;-)
--
___ _ "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence"
{__/ // "over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
\ // _ ___ Dick Feynman, Appendix F of Shuttle Disaster Report
{__/ </_</_// <_ ful...@alfalfa.sps.mot.com sun!sunburn!dover!fullmer
Larry Poleshuck
>
> MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- November 13, 1990 -- Sun Microsystems
> announced today that the source code for its OpenWindows(TM)
> application development environment will now be available free of
> charge (cost of media only -- $995). This means that hardware and
What media are you using -- gold-plated clay tablets?
--
Larry Poleshuck
Citibank
111 Wall Street
New York, NY 10043
Phone: 212-657-7709
Fax: 212-657-0068
E-Mail: uunet!ibism!lcp
Donald Lewine
|> charge (cost of media only -- $995).
Yes, Lotus 1-2-3 is FREE also when you pay $495 for the media. If
this media costs SUN $995 I would like to talk to them about
selling them blank tapes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald A. Lewine (508) 870-9008 Voice
Data General Corporation (508) 366-0750 FAX
4400 Computer Drive. MS D112A
Westboro, MA 01580 U.S.A.
uucp: uunet!dg!lewine Internet: lew...@cheshirecat.webo.dg.com
Ittai Hershman
application development environment will now be available free of
charge (cost of media only -- $995).
When OpenWindows 1.0 (binary FCS) was released it also just had a
media charge, but it was only $295.
The irony here is that this $995 media cost is just $5 less than a
Motif source ***license***. To be fair, there are no royalties owed
to Sun for any derivative binaries, whereas Motif binaries are subject
to a royalty payment. Source-licensed universities can distribute
Motif binaries in-house for free, all others pay based on a sliding
quantity scale (from $40 quantity one, down to $10 for the quantities
a hardware vendor ships).
No flames please. I'm just pointing out that Sun('s pot) can't really
call the OSF kettle black.
-Ittai
PS: This analysis doesn't apply to those of you who want NeWS,
however.
Patrick Gosling
>|> free of
>|> charge (cost of media only -- $995).
>
>selling them blank tapes.
Just to be fair to sun, I gather that what you get for your $995 includes a
fairly large stack of documentation. Take the price that GNU (sorry, the
FSF) (for example) charge for media ($150 per tape isn't it?), and the kind
of price you pay for books nowadays, and it don't seem _too_ bad.
just my 2p's worth ...
share+enjoy,
Patrick
--
Patrick Gosling, jp...@eng.cam.ac.uk
Cambridge Univ. Engineering Dept., UK.
Alan M. Carroll
> In article <11...@dg.dg.com> uunet!dg!lewine writes:
> >|> free of
> >|> charge (cost of media only -- $995).
> >
> >If this media costs SUN $995 I would like to talk to them about
> >selling them blank tapes.
>
> Just to be fair to sun, I gather that what you get for your $995 includes a
> fairly large stack of documentation. Take the price that GNU (sorry, the
> FSF) (for example) charge for media ($150 per tape isn't it?), and the kind
> of price you pay for books nowadays, and it don't seem _too_ bad.
>
worth of books to use OpenWindows, I'm not going anywhere near it.
Also, my impression is that the FSF deliberately sets the price of their
tapes high to discourage people from actually ordering them, instead of
getting the stuff off the net or from a friend. How many people do you know
that run Emacs and actually paid for a GNU tape? If Sun doesn't allow the
source to be put on an anon-FTP site, then there's no comparison to GNU
source, regardless of the the FSF charges per tape.
--
Alan M. Carroll Barbara/Marilyn in '92 :
Epoch Development Team + This time, why not choose the better halves?
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!cs.uiuc.edu!carroll
Peter Korp
>> In article <11...@dg.dg.com> uunet!dg!lewine writes:
>> >|> free of
>> >|> charge (cost of media only -- $995).
>> >
>> >If this media costs SUN $995 I would like to talk to them about
>> >selling them blank tapes.
>>
>> Just to be fair to sun, I gather that what you get for your $995 includes a
>> fairly large stack of documentation. Take the price that GNU (sorry, the
>> FSF) (for example) charge for media ($150 per tape isn't it?), and the kind
>> of price you pay for books nowadays, and it don't seem _too_ bad.
>>
Since the announcement I have heard all the talk of the mysterious $995 *media*
charge. They do seem to use gold tape no?
Well it seems there is an answer to all this. In attempting to make OpenWindows
freely available Sun had to negotiate with AT&T. Apparently some AT&T code
exists in OW 2.0 or own some rights to it. Therefore, the best deal(?) Sun
could come up with was to charge a rather large one time fee for docs and media
yet allow you to copy source freely. The costs for redistributing binaries of
OpenWindows with systems is also basiclly to cover the royalties to AT&T for
each copy. An interesting side effect is that if you port OpenWindows to a
non-UNIX platform then no royalties must be paid.
So it is not as great a deal as we all wish it would have been, but I think
Sun has got the right intentions. Let us hope that OpenWindows version 3 will
be kept clear of all of these licensing issues.
As a side note, since the announcement by Sun I have found at least 3 vendors
whose engineering groups are claiming to be ready to ship X11/NeWS servers with
their hardware/UNIX.
1) Everex - PC maker and ESIX makers will ship X11/NeWS with release 4 of ESIX
this will be sometime Q1-91.
2) Commodore - Makers of the Amiga and also V.4 on Amigas, says that once the
current implementation of X11R4 is up, they will concentrate on
porting X11/NeWS to their system. Timeframe, probably Q2-91
3) UHX - Makers of some techinally cool hardware, i860/486 machines claims to
be shipping X11/NeWS as part of their V.4 package.
This seems to be a good start for OpenWindows.
Peter
Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer
In article <1990Nov15.1...@mcs.anl.gov>, ko...@atlantis.ees.anl.gov (Peter Korp) writes:
> charge (cost of media only -- $995). This means that hardware and
What media are you using -- gold-plated clay tablets?
The same stuff BSD ships their distribution on?
I don't know what's in the distribution, but if you assume that it's
about the same size as X11, then you've got 4 tapes worth of stuff.
Assuming you get a full set of documentation, you're getting about the
same set of stuff that BSD ships in their distribution. And all they
charge you is "media" charges. Last time I looked, CSRG wanted $700
for a BSD tape set. Given that CSRG was using student labor to copy
tapes, they should be noticably cheaper.
The price is very high for "free" software; especially if you're used
to microcomputer software prices. For workstation software, that's not
a high price. And it's in line with other "free" unix distributions of
similar size.
<mike
--
Russ Poffenberger
>In article <11...@dg.dg.com> uunet!dg!lewine writes:
>>|> free of
>>|> charge (cost of media only -- $995).
>>
>>If this media costs SUN $995 I would like to talk to them about
>>selling them blank tapes.
>
>Just to be fair to sun, I gather that what you get for your $995 includes a
>fairly large stack of documentation. Take the price that GNU (sorry, the
>FSF) (for example) charge for media ($150 per tape isn't it?), and the kind
>of price you pay for books nowadays, and it don't seem _too_ bad.
>
>just my 2p's worth ...
>share+enjoy,
>
Yeah, but if you have net access, you can get it for FREE via ftp from many
sites.
Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: pof...@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276
San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254
presley
official sun explanation on the media charge.
--
Appearing again:
-John West- el...@athena.erc.msstate.edu
Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation
Mississippi State University ***** National Science Foundation
P.O. Drawer EE {Simrall Bldg, Rm 431} (601) 325-8234 (voice)
Mississippi State, MS 39762 (601) 325-2298 (fax)
.........the opinions presented here are those of the King..........
Bob Haar CS50
pof...@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) writes:
|> >In article <11...@dg.dg.com> uunet!dg!lewine writes:
|> >>|> free of
|> >>|> charge (cost of media only -- $995).
|>
|> sites.
WRONG! You may not pay for it, but someone does. Net transfers are
not free. There is not unlimited bandwidth on the networks. Also,
there are certainly legal problems with making copyrighted documentation
available for electronic copying.
Bob Haar CSNET: HA...@GMR.COM UUCP: uunet!edsews!rphroy!rcsrlh!rhaar
Computer Science Dept., G.M. Research Laboratories
DISCLAIMER: Unless indicated otherwise, everything in this note is
personal opinion, not an official statement of General Motors Corp.
Tim Bray
>And if you need $850
>worth of books to use OpenWindows, I'm not going anywhere near it.
Yeah, well you need that many books to use Motif too, except they don't exist.
Tim Bray (Motif hack in a bad mood (@!$!$#$ form widget...))
Casey Leedom
|
| | From: l...@ibism.UUCP (Larry Poleshuck)
| |
| | | From: ko...@atlantis.ees.anl.gov (Peter Korp)
| | |
| | | ... cost of media only -- $995 ...
| |
| | What media are you using -- gold-plated clay tablets?
|
| The same stuff BSD ships their distribution on?
|
| was using student labor to copy tapes, they should be noticably cheaper.
|
| The price is very high for "free" software; especially if you're used to
| microcomputer software prices. For workstation software, that's not a
| high price. And it's in line with other "free" unix distributions of
| similar size.
The CSRG distribution fee covers far more than tape distribution
costs. One of the big ticket items it covers is Keith Bostic's salary.
If you call CSRG for help with 4BSD, it's Keith who answers your
questions. CSRG considers this distribution support as part of the
distribution cost.
I haven't heard of any such support being advertised for OpenWindows,
but I expect that there will be some effort to answer problem reports on
XPERT in much the same way that Heather Rose and company answer problem
reports about XView. And, as others have pointed out, the OpenWindows
distribution probably comes with a fairly hefty chunk of documentation.
You might be inclined to compare the cost of CSRG's operating system
against Sun's software system, claiming that they're not the same size,
complexity, etc. On the other hand you should remember that CSRG
operates with a very small staff with almost no waste. Sun is a major
corporation sporting much higher salaries both in management and at the
peon level (which is the only level which CSRG has! :-))
Casey