Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!cbnewsi!cbnewsh!wcs
From: wcs@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (Bill Stewart 908-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Len Rose sentenced to Prison Term
Message-ID: <1991Jun27.160030.8689@cbnewsh.cb.att.com>
Date: 27 Jun 91 16:00:30 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.230332.23713@lunatix.uucp> <60983@sneaky.lonestar.org> <9272@hsv3.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Your typical phone company involved in your typical daydream
Lines: 33

In article <9272@hsv3.UUCP> mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
]In article <60983@sneaky.lonestar.org> gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org
](Gordon Burditt) writes:
]>>... AT&T has made a serious mistake in claiming such a high value for login.c.  
]>Let's make sure that everyone (with particular attention to taxing
]>authorities in charge of things like business inventory taxes) knows
]>exactly how valuable it is.
]OOooooo, I *like* it.  

Help yourself, dude.  AT&T has more accountants, bean counters,
bureaucrats, and government regulators running around here than
anything else its size, and if they haven't counted something twice
then it must not be there.  I'm personally surprised that they count
login.c as such a high fraction of the total value of UNIX source code,
but I doubt they sell it separately anyway - and you put a different
value on something that's been ripped off than on something you sell.

Back in the robber-baron days at the turn of the century, the Bell
telephone companies made a deal with the government that they could
have monopoly powers in return for government regulation of our
finances, pricing, services, and corporate structure, and even
though AT&T isn't a monopoly any more, the regulators haven't left.

All in all, I think it was a bad deal, aside from the obviously
bogus ethics involved in any monopoly, and it's helped set the precedent for
government regulation of broadcast radio and TV, and for monopolies
and regulation in even such areas as cable tv which have NO
conceivable public-utility legitimacy.
-- 
				Pray for peace;		  Bill
# Bill Stewart 908-949-0705 erebus.att.com!wcs AT&T Bell Labs 4M-312 Holmdel NJ
# No, that's covered by the Drug Exception to the Fourth Amendment.
# You can read it here in the fine print.