Commodore UNIX, some questions

[olsen]

I am no lawyer, but wouldn't the copyright return to the programmer once the company he wrote the software for went bankrupt? Especially since no one else bought the rights to it.

Amiga Unix shipped with the source code to the Amiga-specific bits, and as far as I know these were never ever lost. You could rebuild the kernel, for example, changing the Amiga-specific code, but the portions which were not Amiga-specific were provided as object files in binary form only.

The portion we were after was the AT&T System V Release 4 source code itself, including Amiga-platform specific patches. In a nutshell, we would have liked to be able to rebuild the entire Amiga Unix kernel, userland files and everything, and turn Amiga Unix back into a commercial product.

Problem was, this wasn't a 1980'ies game, but some serious, very expensive code base which was valued north of US$ 500,000 at the time.

Well, it probably was a pipe dream to be able to upgrade the kernel code (support the 68040, support more peripherals such as DAT drives, for example). But we tried anyway, and we failed

But, thankfully, NetBSD finally came around at the time when we tried to revive Amiga Unix. It would have been very difficult to revive Amiga Unix, get it back into shape, since it was completely closed source. Given the state of the Amiga market at the time, I doubt that enough customers would have been willing to pay for upgrades (especially since Commodore did their best to burn any bridges it may have still had to the Amiga Unix user community).

[nicholas]

Amiga Unix shipped with the source code to the Amiga-specific bits, and as far as I know these were never ever lost. You could rebuild the kernel, for example, changing the Amiga-specific code, but the portions which were not Amiga-specific were provided as object files in binary form only.

The portion we were after was the AT&T System V Release 4 source code itself, including Amiga-platform specific patches. In a nutshell, we would have liked to be able to rebuild the entire Amiga Unix kernel, userland files and everything, and turn Amiga Unix back into a commercial product.

Problem was, this wasn't a 1980'ies game, but some serious, very expensive code base which was valued north of US$ 500,000 at the time.

Well, it probably was a pipe dream to be able to upgrade the kernel code (support the 68040, support more peripherals such as DAT drives, for example). But we tried anyway, and we failed

But, thankfully, NetBSD finally came around at the time when we tried to revive Amiga Unix. It would have been very difficult to revive Amiga Unix, get it back into shape, since it was completely closed source. Given the state of the Amiga market at the time, I doubt that enough customers would have been willing to pay for upgrades (especially since Commodore did their best to burn any bridges it may have still had to the Amiga Unix user community).

I see, thanks for the details, it's a very interesting story.

Have you ever thought about writing an historical book about your experiences? I'd buy it, in fact I'd even pay for a pre-order!

[Pentad]

Speaking of source code, does anybody have the source code to AMIX?  Whoever that enity is, can't we ask for a copy of the source code?  In 2013, I'm not sure how you could make money off of it.

The last rumor I heard was that the source was accidentally destroyed by Gateway when they reformatted some media (HD/Tapes).

For that matter, who has the source code to Workbench and Kickstart?  Is it the same people?


-P

[AmigaFreak]

Open source has never meant "free" but under license. In essence the original Unix and subsequent developments form that source are "owned/licensed" but are in the Open Source domain which should include the Amiga version. Unix written for other hardware was not sold or transferred to the designers of that hardware but remained with the AT&T/Sun/BSD/SCO/XOpen group. You can use it, improve it, love it, but the software is not yours -- it remains open source and under license.

Yeah I agree, I meant "free" as in ability to change. Though from what I read System V-based UNIX are still considered "closed source" which is what I meant. Anyway, that would be cool, I myself would love to run Amiga UNIX in WinUAE.

[Matt_H]

Speaking of source code, does anybody have the source code to AMIX?  Whoever that enity is, can't we ask for a copy of the source code?  In 2013, I'm not sure how you could make money off of it.

The Amiga bits that olsen references (the ones that haven't been lost) are on the distribution tapes themselves, and these have been backed up/archived.

The last rumor I heard was that the source was accidentally destroyed by Gateway when they reformatted some media (HD/Tapes).

I heard that story, too, but I think it was before Gateway. Sometime during the ESCOM handover.

For that matter, who has the source code to Workbench and Kickstart?  Is it the same people?

olsen had/has it

[olsen]

I see, thanks for the details, it's a very interesting story.

Have you ever thought about writing an historical book about your experiences? I'd buy it, in fact I'd even pay for a pre-order!

Ha! Here comes my Forrest Gump moment

I did not keep a journal in these days, and what I recall cannot be the complete picture. Let's hope that http://www.amiga.org will be archived for future generations to wonder what that thing "Amiga" is everybody's talking about in 2317.

[olsen]

Speaking of source code, does anybody have the source code to AMIX?

It's possible. Whoever I managed to contact back in 1995, when I tried to get the source code back for Amiga Technologies GmbH, did appear to me to be the kind of professional programmer who would hang onto such things, in case somebody came calling (just like I did with the AmigaOS source code). Still, as the years go by, the knowledge to make the code work again does tend to fade.

Whoever that enity is, can't we ask for a copy of the source code?

You can always ask, but you can't always have what you want. It's probably easier to stir the pond and wait for the original AT&T SVR4 source code to rise to the surface than to try and do this for the Amiga Unix source code. I bet that many more people had access to the AT&T SVR4 source code than were ever involved with the exotic Amiga Unix source code.

In 2013, I'm not sure how you could make money off of it.

That's easy for you to say. Think "lawsuit". Specifically, think "IP lawsuit": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group

The last rumor I heard was that the source was accidentally destroyed by Gateway when they reformatted some media (HD/Tapes).

Yes, they probably threw the wrong switch at the same time and accidentally disintegrated larger parts of South Dakota, too (which has gone largely unnoticed even today).

As far as I know, Commodore sold off its hardware assets (workstations, PCs, Amigas, manufacturing machines) when it went into liquidation. Before the computers were sold, however, the contents of the hard disk drives, etc. were stored on magnetic tapes (e.g. QIC). Some of those tapes were quickly made available to ESCOM, and they did contain the almost entire Amiga business material (operating system source code, manuscripts, software, etc.). But some of the backup tape contents never surfaced again. The content listings I saw suggest that these tapes were mostly backups of CAD workstations. So, it's possible that some data was lost, but the Amiga stuff is still around and in really decent shape (probably better shape than it was in 1994).

As far as the Amiga Unix source code is concerned, I suspect that it may have never been stored on the Commodore computers which were still around when the backup tapes for ESCOM were made. AT&T licensed the Unix source code to manufacturers and it would not surprise me if the licensing agreement stipulated security measures intended to limit the exposure the source code got within the company which ported it to their hardware. Remember, back in 1989 there was just one commercial grade Unix solution, and it was worth a lot of money to company which owned it. Part of that value came out of keeping it closed source.

For that matter, who has the source code to Workbench and Kickstart?

I know somebody who knows...

 Is it the same people?

It's possible, but somewhat unlikely.

[rabindranath72]

IIRC the Amiga port was not done (completely) by Commodore, but by UniSoft. The same company which ported SVR4 to the Atari TT/Falcon and Macintosh (called A/UX.) This company specialised in ports to 68k architectures.
The reason why the source code of A/UX, AMIX and Atari is not available is that (large) parts of it still belong to AT&T. Part of the reason why A/UX, AMIX and Atari UNIX didn't get much support is that the royalties were huge. In the end, Apple at least decided to acquire NeXT and develop it in-house. A pity, since A/UX is pretty cool.

[olsen]

IIRC the Amiga port was not done (completely) by Commodore, but by UniSoft. The same company which ported SVR4 to the Atari TT/Falcon and Macintosh (called A/UX.)

Interesting; I didn't know that there were so many 68k ports of SVR4 around. By 1992 Unix usage had started to tilt towards RISC platforms (SPARC and MIPS), and Motorola's 68040 did not exactly draw a crowd (although Apollo Computer/NeXT used the 68040 in a number of models).

This company specialised in ports to 68k architectures.
The reason why the source code of A/UX, AMIX and Atari is not available is that (large) parts of it still belong to AT&T. Part of the reason why A/UX, AMIX and Atari UNIX didn't get much support is that the royalties were huge.

Yes, that would explain why Commodore got out of the market, at breakneck pace. If anything, the management were cheapskates. Still, given the cost of the A3000 platform, it might have made a viable low-end Unix workstation had Commodore had more trust in building a business around it. Other entry-level workstations available in 1989/1990 were certainly much cooler, and there were whole "ecosystems" already in place which they fit into (e.g. Sun), but you had to pay a lot more money for this gear.

In the end, Apple at least decided to acquire NeXT and develop it in-house.

But then NeXTSTEP was a pretty exotic Unix to start with. It had 4.2BSD user code/kernel APIs, which sat on top of the MACH kernel. Back in 1995 it was already tough to compile and build current GNU/Unix code on a NeXT machine. Bootstrapping gcc became next to impossible, and even something comparatively simple such as building ssh would break your heart...

If I remember correctly, Apple ended up rebuilding the kernel from the inside out, using parts of FreeBSD. The userland software part of NeXTSTEP (the entire ObjC framework which lives on Mac OS X) was worth the price, but not so much the kernel underpinnings.

A pity, since A/UX is pretty cool.

I can't say I've ever used it. But it it's SVR4 compatible, it might actually offer better support for building "current" software on it than NEXTSTEP wound up.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Just popping in here to say I love this thread!  Amazing how new details still come out even today.  Thanks for posting!  

[Pentad]

That's easy for you to say. Think "lawsuit". Specifically, think "IP lawsuit": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group

As a University Professor who taught IP, Copyright, and Patents for seven years, I know all about this.  :-)

However, I think you misunderstood what I was saying...  I'm not sure the owners of AMIX (source code and all) could make any money off of it from a product stand point.  It runs on such limited hardware, would have such a limited market, and is so outdated that it is nearly useless.

On a side note, the SCO example would not apply to this particular situation.  I could explain why but it is long and complicated.

Actually, I think AMIX would be hard to defend for IP violations.  

-P

[Nostalgiac]

Interesting; I didn't know that there were so many 68k ports of SVR4 around. By 1992 Unix usage had started to tilt towards RISC platforms (SPARC and MIPS), and Motorola's 68040 did not exactly draw a crowd (although Apollo Computer/NeXT used the 68040 in a number of models).

Yes, that would explain why Commodore got out of the market, at breakneck pace. If anything, the management were cheapskates. Still, given the cost of the A3000 platform, it might have made a viable low-end Unix workstation had Commodore had more trust in building a business around it. Other entry-level workstations available in 1989/1990 were certainly much cooler, and there were whole "ecosystems" already in place which they fit into (e.g. Sun), but you had to pay a lot more money for this gear.

From what I learned in my 11 years at Sun, there was an honest attempt at licensing the A3000 and AMIX as a cheap/relabelled Sun supported unix system - it was unclear (to me) why the deal never happened

ta
TomUK

[psxphill]

I am no lawyer, but wouldn't the copyright return to the programmer once the company he wrote the software for went bankrupt? Especially since no one else bought the rights to it.
 
This is how many 80's games have been re-released recently.

No that isn't an automatic thing. It would have to be included in the contract. It would usually only happen if you wrote the software and took it to someone else to publish, not if you were paid to develop the software as an employee.
 
Also commodore only licensed the unix source themselves & the contract for that will probably have terminated those rights when commodore went under.

[Matt_H]

From what I learned in my 11 years at Sun, there was an honest attempt at licensing the A3000 and AMIX as a cheap/relabelled Sun supported unix system - it was unclear (to me) why the deal never happened

ta
TomUK

Dave Haynie talks about the situation in the Deathbed Vigil. It was - surprise - Commodore management that botched the deal.

[olsen]

As a University Professor who taught IP, Copyright, and Patents for seven years, I know all about this.  :-)

Sounds tough, given how ripe with side-effects the field has become over last century, and in particular the past decade.

However, I think you misunderstood what I was saying...  I'm not sure the owners of AMIX (source code and all) could make any money off of it from a product stand point.  It runs on such limited hardware, would have such a limited market, and is so outdated that it is nearly useless.

That may be true, but such an analysis seems to be done very rarely. Even if it is done, it appears that nobody wants to explore the consequences that may arise from releasing the property.

For example, somebody must have believed that extending copyright protection for works produced by a corporation to 120 years would be a good idea. But what class of works still possesses value after 120 years? Speculatively, there might be some value left, so letting it go (even if it currently appears to have no discernable value at all) might result in a loss of revenue, so it's easier to decide against letting it go than to choose the alternative.

I guess we'll find out in the year 2048 how much Disney still makes off "Steamboat Willie", when it might finally go into the public domain  If it is allowed to go, it could mean that there is no practical value left. Seriously, how much value is there to 16mm black and white cartoons with sound effects after 120 years?

And you're talking about operating system source code which is barely 25 years old. Somebody might not want to risk releasing such a valuable property right now, as it could arguably still generate revenue.

On a side note, the SCO example would not apply to this particular situation.  I could explain why but it is long and complicated.

I would expect so, and would want to add "sad" to the list of applicable adjectives, too.

Actually, I think AMIX would be hard to defend for IP violations.  
-P

Could be, but I bet there's going to be somebody who'd champion to defend the cause anyway, and win, too  It is easier to say "no" to this for the property owners than to say "yes".

But, given that you have the necessary background, why not give it a try and ask Novell? That might be an interesting exercise (and produce material for coursework)

[psxphill]

Interesting; I didn't know that there were so many 68k ports of SVR4 around. By 1992 Unix usage had started to tilt towards RISC platforms (SPARC and MIPS), and Motorola's 68040 did not exactly draw a crowd (although Apollo Computer/NeXT used the 68040 in a number of models).

NCR sold 68040 based machines too. Around 1992 was when x86 unix started to take off.