Has The Programmers' Workbench (PWB)/Mashey shell been ported to any
current UNIX/*BSD/IllumOS or GNU/Linux? I've found all other shells I've
heard of (many rarely heard of anymore) except the PWB/Mashey shell...

David Chmelik <dchmelik@gmail.com> writes:

> Has The Programmers' Workbench (PWB)/Mashey shell been ported to any
> current UNIX/*BSD/IllumOS or GNU/Linux? I've found all other shells I've
> heard of (many rarely heard of anymore) except the PWB/Mashey shell...

I can't help with your question, but have you found any shells from the
same era as the PWB shell? If so, they must have been ported solely as
historical curiosities.

--
Ben.

On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 12:44:46 +0100, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> I can't help with your question, but have you found any shells from the
> same era as the PWB shell? If so, they must have been ported solely as
> historical curiosities.

Yes: Almquist, original Bourne, Thompson shell, maybe others. A couple
decades ago a/the UNIX trademark owner made much/all earlier UNIX source
code Free/Libre/Opensource Software (FLS, OSS, FOSS, FLOSS) including PWM/
Mashey shell which is still at archives/repositories such as The UNIX
Heritage Society.

Later there was a lawsuit that organization didn't have right to because
AT&T sold trademark to several organizations, but 'the cat is out of the
bag' and people can use that code as long as they don't sell it (maybe not
distribute it either or at least not largely-publicize it to attract wrong
attention).

Of course, PWB/Mashey shell still freely/legally runs on UNIX servers and
personal-use emulators... for newer servers/PCs it's merely a question of
updates that may be minor (as was the case with other three I mentioned).

David Chmelik <dchmelik@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 12:44:46 +0100, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> I can't help with your question, but have you found any shells from the
>> same era as the PWB shell? If so, they must have been ported solely as
>> historical curiosities.
>
> Yes: Almquist, original Bourne, Thompson shell, maybe others. A couple
> decades ago a/the UNIX trademark owner made much/all earlier UNIX source
> code Free/Libre/Opensource Software (FLS, OSS, FOSS, FLOSS) including PWM/
> Mashey shell which is still at archives/repositories such as The UNIX
> Heritage Society.

Are the ports freely available? I wonder why the PWB shell was not
ported...

--
Ben.

David Chmelik wrote:

> A couple
> decades ago a/the UNIX trademark owner made much/all earlier UNIX source
> code Free/Libre/Opensource Software (FLS, OSS, FOSS, FLOSS) including PWM/
> Mashey shell which is still at archives/repositories such as The UNIX
> Heritage Society.

You are mixing up two different intellectual property rights: copyright
and trademarks. The UNIX trademark was given to X/Open (now The Open
Group) by Novell in 1993. The events concerning UNIX source code and
copyrights that you describe happened much later, after the source code
had been sold by Novell to SCO and SCO had been bought by Caldera.

> Later there was a lawsuit that organization didn't have right to because
> AT&T sold trademark to several organizations

AT&T sold the trademark, source code, and copyrights to one organisation:
Novell. Novell gave the trademark to X/Open and sold the source code to
SCO. The dispute over the copyright was not because there were multiple
organisations but because of the way the contract between Novell and SCO
was worded. The eventual result of the legal process was that the
copyrights were not included in the transfer from Novell to SCO.
For details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._Novell

--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>

On 2022-08-29, Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> wrote:

> The eventual result of the legal process was that the
> copyrights were not included in the transfer from Novell to SCO.
> For details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._Novell

Huh. I guess this means that my

The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Special Software License Agreement for Ancient UNIX Source Code
...
1999

is void?

As well as the open-sourcing of Version 7 by Caldera in 2002, since
they acquired the rights from SCO?

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On 29/08/2022 15:52, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2022-08-29, Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> wrote:
>
>> The eventual result of the legal process was that the
>> copyrights were not included in the transfer from Novell to SCO.
>> For details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._Novell
>
> Huh. I guess this means that my
>
> The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
> Special Software License Agreement for Ancient UNIX Source Code
> ...
> 1999
>
> is void?
>
> As well as the open-sourcing of Version 7 by Caldera in 2002, since
> they acquired the rights from SCO?
>

SCO Group - as in spat over copyright - and Santa Cruz Operation were
not the same people.
I was using Santa Cruz Operation UNIX on an 80486 in (I suppose) early
1990's

--
Chris Elvidge
England

Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> On 2022-08-29, Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> wrote:
>
>> The eventual result of the legal process was that the
>> copyrights were not included in the transfer from Novell to SCO.
>> For details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._Novell
>
> Huh. I guess this means that my
>
> The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
> Special Software License Agreement for Ancient UNIX Source Code
> ...
> 1999
>
> is void?
>
> As well as the open-sourcing of Version 7 by Caldera in 2002, since
> they acquired the rights from SCO?

It would seem so, although the various UNIX copyright owners
(Attachmate and Micro Focus) since Novell don't appear to have taken
any action against sites hosting the code.

The ownership is soon to change again (OpenText is buying Micro Focus)
so that could change, but it seems unlikely.

--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>

Il 30/08/2022 14:59, Chris Elvidge ha scritto:
> On 29/08/2022 15:52, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>> On 2022-08-29, Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> The eventual result of the legal process was that the
>>> copyrights were not included in the transfer from Novell to SCO.
>>> For details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._Novell
>>
>> Huh.  I guess this means that my
>>
>>    The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
>>    Special Software License Agreement for Ancient UNIX Source Code
>>    ...
>>    1999
>>
>> is void?
>>
>> As well as the open-sourcing of Version 7 by Caldera in 2002, since
>> they acquired the rights from SCO?
>>
>
> SCO Group - as in spat over copyright - and Santa Cruz Operation were
> not the same people.
> I was using Santa Cruz Operation UNIX on an 80486 in (I suppose) early
> 1990's
>
>

I still keep a backup copy of the floppy installation disks (fd096ds15)
of "Sco Unix 80386"... and their yellow cap with the "SCO" logo in blue.
:-)