Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!decwrl!granite!vajra!rwood
From: rwood@vajra.dec.com (Richard Wood)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: DECstation 3100 **really** wants to be a rainbow.
Keywords: login userlimit license royalty
Message-ID: <672@granite.dec.com>
Date: 13 Nov 89 20:25:07 GMT
References: <2573@canisius.UUCP> <4903@yunexus.UUCP> <474@shodha.dec.com>
Sender: news@granite.dec.com
Reply-To: rwood@vajra.dec.com (Richard Wood)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 37

>>  But I do object to the ongoing campaign of its employees to pretend that 
>>  the license limits and "update" charges for ULTRIX are AT&T's fault and 
>>  gain.  This is nonsense: DEC charges a tremendous markup over AT&T's 
>>  royalties.  AT&T's royalty schedules have been presented in several 
>>  publications lately and one only has to compare this to DEC's prices 
>>  to see that this is true.

Although I'm not speaking for DEC, some of us are getting tired of
everyone deciding that they understand the situation when UNIX licensing
is clearly a black art.  Don't tell me you know about AT&T's Ts&Cs for
UNIX licensing - for *RE-SELLERS* of UNIX, every agreement is negotiated
separately, and the terms are under non-disclosure.  We legally cannot
tell you under what terms we are allowed to re-sell UNIX.  So it's
highly unlikely that you would know how much we have to pay AT&T.

It's also important to note that Digital is operating under a perpetual
license that covers an earlier version of UNIX than the one AT&T is
currently shipping.  Even if AT&T changes it's end-user prices, or even
lowering reseller prices, Digital's price doesn't change!  We could
probably re-negotiate a new license, but there were terms in the System
5.3 license that they offered us that we objected to so strongly that we
founded OSF - partially as a way around AT&T.

The royalty schedules you've seen are undoubtedly for AT&T's version of
UNIX, and they can price them however they like.  Our fees to AT&T are
fixed by contract.


[On another topic, many of Digital's less-UNIX-knowledgable sales reps
aren't good sources for information on Digital's ULTRIX.  We're doing
our best to educate them.  In the meantime: yes, multi-user licenses are
available on *all* ULTRIX systems, including workstations.]

*UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and other countries.
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Richard Wood     Corporate Worksystems Team      Digital Equipment Corp.
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