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From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: 1-2 vs unlimited licenses (Unix for a 386)
Message-ID: <9356@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 25 Aug 89 14:39:55 GMT
References: <1989Aug16.020438.5662@esegue.uucp> <7186@megatest.UUCP> <1792@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 30

In article <PCG.89Aug23164912@thor.cs.aber.ac.uk> pcg@thor.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

>My dim remembrance is that the AT&T royalty is (depending on
>volume) under $50 for 1-2 users and under $150 for unlimited
>(complete system, I think). Their explicit reason for the not
>high level of royalties was to encourage the diffusion of UNIX by
>making it possible to resell its binaries for cheap, e.g. like
>BellTech, Microport and Everex do; AT&T wants people to buy
>UNIX/386 for *much* cheaper than OS/2, both runtime and
>development system.

Great! Why don't they bundle the online documentation and unbundle the
printed version instead.  Most of the real cost of the system is paying
people to cart the books around and store them somewhere (which never
turns out to be the place you need them).

>The reason for 1-2 and unlimited was that 1-2 was for PC users
>(e.g. the ill fated 7300, or on a 386 UNIX as a competitor to
>OS/2) and workstations, and unlimited was for minis and other
>multiuser systems. AT&T decided to 'segment' their market this
>way.

Umm.. I don't recall ever seeing such things available directly
from AT&T.  That is, their 7300 and 386 UNIX are only sold in
unlimited versions.  So, the 'segmenting' is between "real" AT&T
unix and "others" and from the looks of things here, it has the
effect of creating ill will towards the "others" because it is
a case of intentional crippling. 

Les Mikesell