Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2018 December 4

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December 4

Sources/References for licences of Unix commands to implement in Wikidata

Hello all,

I'd like to add the licenses and their references to the following Unix commands in Wikidata: List of Unix commands. The current status of the inserted (but not always referenced) licenses can be seen on my (german) talk subpage: de:Benutzer:Hundsrose/Wikidata Spielwiese. Is there a general approach to find them online and reference them afterwards in Wikidata, maybe with the alias (Unix) as example?

Many thanks for your help.

Best regards --Hundsrose (talk) 12:32, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, this is a worthy endeavour, but may be a bit like the search for the holy grail. Many of the UNIX commands have been re-implemented multiple times - for most you will find at least a BSD version and a GPL version. Many have also been re-released under different licenses at different times. And maybe the original AT&T code is even in the public domain (AT&T was convinced enough to settle UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. v. Berkeley Software Design, Inc. before a formal verdict, and without getting anything out of the lawsuit). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:09, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your answer, @Stephan Schulz:! I underestimated the complexity of the question and the historical background. I appreciate the clarification and I wasn't aware of the lawsuit. Concerning the BSD and GPL version: on the webpage of the Free Software Directory, I can see the licenses of GNU [1]. Using the same webpage for BSD etc. wil display a lot of software. Could you please help me to understand how to filter on this, meaning searching for a specific unix command: [2]? Your help is much appreciated. Kind regards --Hundsrose (talk) 17:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but it looks like you jumped into something a lot more complicated than you thought. History of Unix is worth a read if you haven't read it. "BSD" isn't even a single thing. Are you talking about the actual good old BSD system that was written and distributed from UC Berkeley in the 1970s-80s (which doesn't have an official webpage that I know of), or the various descendants of it such as FreeBSD and NetBSD? And what about the proprietary Unixes like HP-UX and Solaris? The problem is there's no single software program you can point to and say, "This is ping", unless you're talking about a specific historical version of ping, e.g., "This is Version 7 Unix ping". "Unix" today, to the extent it is a "thing", is a set of standards (not source code) maintained by The Open Group, which actually owns the "Unix" trademark. As long as you write code that conforms to the standards, your code can be considered at least unofficially "Unix". If I write my own standards-conformant ping and release it under my own Super Cool Awesome License, are you going to list that license? Most proprietary software isn't even released under a standardized license like the GPL; it's just under generic "all rights reserved" boilerplate. This is why articles here on the English Wikipedia for proprietary software usually just list "closed-source" or "proprietary license" as the software license (example: Microsoft Windows). --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:58, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. If I need to know the actual license for a given piece of software, I would normally look at the package description and/or the source code package for that particular version I need. There is not really a generic answer for "ping" or "cat". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:54, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your insights! I will read myself through the proposed topics and I also removed the license column from my subuserpage. Best regards --Hundsrose (talk) 19:47, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

LTE

If a smartphone doesn't include 700mhz (band 17) when a carrier says it should. Would LTE still work anyway if the frequency is higher, lets say 850mhz.Ajax-x86 (talk) 15:44, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

You should address this question to your carrier. Ruslik_Zero 20:42, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

If your phone doesn't support the band then it doesn't support the band. It doesn't matter what other bands it supports and what their frequency is. (As noted in the LTE frequency bands articles, some bands share at least part of the same frequencies. For example a phone which supports 1 and 3 is not guaranteed to support 4.) It is sometimes possible to enable unsupported bands when they are actually supported by the hardware but this is rare, complicated and depends on the specific phone and may also violate local law or similar.

If the carrier also uses other bands which the phone does support, then it will work in those areas those bands are available, but it won't work in areas where the only band is the one which isn't supported and of course it also won't be able to use the unsupported band where both are available. (So coverage may be poorer or suddenly drop out, and speeds may be reduced.)

I don't understand what you mean by "carrier says it should". If the carrier sold you the phone and told you it supports a band but it doesn't then in many developed countries and even a number of developing ones this would come under some form of false marketing and you're probably entitled to either return the phone for a refund or have the carrier fix the defect although you we can't give you legal advice on that here.

If your carrier says you need a certain band to use your network my earlier comment applies. The carrier saying you need the band means they likely won't offer any support for coverage or speed problems but it will work where and how it works in areas where other bands may be available that are supported. (And assuming it's not an LTE only network, for any non LTE bands and networks the phone and carrier use.) Precisely how well, you'll need to find out how important that band is in their coverage. Although bear in mind networks are always changing, and especially with next generation networks coming in they may switch which bands they are using. So even if it works fine in most areas that matter to you now, it doesn't mean it will 1 year from now. Especially if support for that band has always been required and offered in all phones the carrier has official supported or sold.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:57, 5 December 2018 (UTC)