"sokolov@alpha.CES.CWRU.Edu" "Michael Sokolov" wrote:

>> The VMS source listings were available as part of the VMS licence up to
>> some point.
>   
>   What?! VMS sources?! Including the code that checks the licenses, so
>that one could see how the checksum is computed and generate his/her own
>VMS licenses? I'm impressed...

It's source listings not sources, i.e. the output you get when you do something
like:
	CC file /LIST=file.lis

file.lis is what ends up on the fiche. But this is good - you essentially get 
the source plus some formatting plus the generated machine code. There are 
utilities around (CVTLIS for example) which will take a source listing and 
regenerate the source (ro something very close to it).

The listings are somewhat censored and certain modules are missing. The bits to 
do with the LMF (licence utility) are not included. Other bits concerned with 
code where patents are pending or which contain what are considered to be trade 
secrets are also not included (I can't think of anything right now). Probably a 
dozen files out of some number of thousands are missing. The LMF has been 
reverse engineered several times by different people, so lack of listings isn't 
that much of a hinderance.

It's intended to let people see how the innards of the OS fit together and let 
people write code using undocumented interfaces etc. So the "censoring" is of 
little practical importance.

Antonio

Antonio Carlini                            Mail: carlini@marvin.enet.dec.com
DECnet-Plus for OpenVMS Engineering
Digital Equipment Corporation              Worton Grange, Reading, England