Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: You get what you pay for (was: Re: Motif -> Open Look look & feel)
Message-ID: <3744@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 24 Jul 90 19:15:08 GMT
References: <9007210429.AA09366@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU> <3725@auspex.auspex.com> <1990Jul23.142314.6541@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 34

>Perhaps. But it was the easy availability of Unix in academic environments
>and subsequent exposure of a large number of programmers to Unix systems
>via the Berkeley distribution (which was source), that created the demand.
>That, coupled with the demonstrations by Sun and Apollo that Unix could be
>a viable commercial operating system

The version of UNIX that "caught on like wildfire, that made it the
success it is", was available inexpensively source form only to a subset
of its ultimate customer base.

This is unlike X, which is available in the form you get it in from MIT
in source form to anybody with 1) the disk space to store it and 2) the
ability to read the tape or FTP it, with the only charge being the
media/transport charge.

I don't know how much difference this difference makes, but the cases of
UNIX and X *do* differ in that regard.

>ATT didn't start charging standard commercial rates for Unix until well
>after BSD hit the campuses

What are you defining as "standard commercial rates" here?

Commercial UNIX source licenses cost big bucks even before VAXes existed
(although BSD, as in "1BSD" and "2BSD" certainly existed during part of
that time; I suspect by "BSD" you're thinking of "4BSD", though).  "Big
bucks", as I remember, was on the order of $20K for the first V7 license
at a site, although subsequent machines may have cost less.

Commercial UNIX binary sublicenses first arrived in the V7 era, before
3BSD or 4BSD existed; they were considerably cheaper than the source
licenses.  Without that provision, I suspect UNIX would have had a hard
time catching on as a commercial OS; most customers wouldn't be able to
get the cheap academic licenses.