Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!helios!calvin.tamu.edu
From: cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu (Chuck Herrick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Yale Pricing
Message-ID: <8883@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 7 Oct 90 18:33:50 GMT
References: <485.270c8aac@venus.ycc.yale.edu> <1990Oct7.034133.4903@zoo.toronto.edu>
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Organization: geodynamics research institute, texas a+m univ
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In article <1990Oct7.034133.4903@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <485.270c8aac@venus.ycc.yale.edu> m@jacobi.biology.yale.edu (mark mccallum) writes:
>>include source for all system software on systems sold with optical/cd-rom
>
>Uh, do remember that large slices of Mach are still Unix-derived, meaning
>that you get to spend circa $100,000 for a commercial Unix source license
...
>NeXT does not have much room to maneuver on this until some combination of
>CMU and Berkeley succeeds in producing a completely de-AT&Tized system.

Those who might wish to comment/examine this issue might be interested
in subscribing to the newsgroup
comp.os.mach
It is a fact that a lion's share of the funding for Mach has come
directly from the coffers of the U.S. government in the form of tax
dollars for funding of CMU (Carnegie Mellon University in 
Pittsburg, PA). While CMU has said that they will eventually rewrite
all of UNIX, incorporating the result into Mach, currently only the
kernel has been completed. Until they make good on their word, the
only people who can really use Mach are those who are willing to
pay the licensing fees to AT&T for the non-Mach UNIX residual in
the operating system. And it costs a bundle, folks. Of course, until
the Mach project is completed, really the only outfits who can profit
from our tax-dollar supported Mach are those who are can afford to
pay the pipers at AT&T. Also note that this is probably true of the
situation with BSD UNIX at Berkeley.
    Those who wish to be a recipient of the benefit generated from
their own tax dollars should speak out to CMU through their own 
voices (and perhaps those of their elected representatives) in order
to avoid another Berkeley-Sun debacle. In other words, you all
paid for BSD UNIX to be done at Berkeley with your tax dollars... and
now when you buy a Sun you're paying for it again, since Sun was
started by some of the same people who did BSD at the Berk and who
then took it to sell it for profit.



-- 
	Chuck Herrick				cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu