🚀 go-pugleaf

My officemate is Mike Young, one of the main graduate students
involved in the Mach Project.  He was kind enough to take time out
from writing his thesis to comment on this post:

>I know this was asked a month or so ago but I never saw a reply.  A rumor
>was going around that: (I'll ask this in parts)
>
>	1. CMU was rewriting the ATT code in the kernel.
>
>	2. Mach would be released in the "public domain" in September.
>	   (Anyone at CMU care to comment?)
>
>	3. The Free Software Foundation (ie RMS and friends) were going
>	   to use the Mach kernel.
>
>Can any of this be true? ( ... maybe I just dreamed it all. )

Some answers:

1) is at least partly true.  In the semi-near term (Mike declined to
discuss exact dates, interpret my expressions as you will) it may be
possible to obtain a "pure" Mach kernel that does not require a Unix
license.  Note, however, that the sense in which Mike is using kernel
here may be different from the sense in which you are used to hearing
it.  This would provide the Mach task and thread abstractions, but
little else.  In particular, a Unix emulation package would be
required to make it look like Unix.  As currently envisioned, this
would originally contain AT&T licensed code.  (Note that the "pure"
Mach kernel would also be a suitable platform on which to implement an
OS/2 emulation package, for example.)  In the "medium-term," this
emulation code may be rewritten to obviate the need for a Unix
license.  This still only covers the operating-system level of Unix --
no effort is envisioned to rewrite user-level utilities, except
occasionally to take advantage of Mach-specific features.  In short,
"kind of, but don't hold your breath."

2) Mach is not in "the public domain," and there are no plans to make
it so in the future.  Users of Mach must sign a Mach license
agreement, which, among other things requires them to give back any
significant modifications to CMU.  Note that even if it becomes the
case that no Unix license is required to run a Unix-like Mach, CMU may
be constrained by the project funding source (i.e., the Defense
Department) from distributing Mach to non-US users.

3) I dunno, but the above makes it unlikely in the very near term.

--
Dave Detlefs			Any correlation between my employer's opinion
Carnegie-Mellon CS		and my own is statistical rather than causal,
dld@cs.cmu.edu			except in those cases where I have helped to
				form my employer's opinion.  (Null disclaimer.)