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From: learn@piroska.uchicago.edu (William  Vajk (igloo))
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Len Rose sentenced to Prison Term
Message-ID: <1991Jun28.124441.4768@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 91 12:44:41 GMT
References: <9272@hsv3.UUCP> <1991Jun27.160030.8689@cbnewsh.cb.att.com>
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Reply-To: learn@piroska.uchicago.edu (William  Vajk (igloo))
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In article <160030.8689@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> Bill Stewart writes:

>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.

Perjury is perjury, regardless. There is an investigation in progress
regarding SE Bell's evaluation of the E-911 file in the Neidorf case.

>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.

AT&T isn't a legal monopoly any longer. There's a difference.

>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.

This is really funny, Bill, for a number of reasons.

In spite of internal rumors, AT&T did not invent 'monopoly.' Either one.

Your founders worked quite hard to achieve the status.

Pole space, need to build cable networks and infrastructure on an
amortizable basis, and all the other stuff that AT&T pioneered was
used for cable tv franchising argumentation. Some of that also spilled
over into the airline industry, trucking, and so forth. It wasn't a
problem of government regulation which permitted those industries to
grow as strong as they did (and incidentally, the teamsters union also
as a direct consequence.) It was actually the government enforcement of
monopoly which gave them the breathing space needed.

I'll just understand that it is politically correct inside the AT&T family
to decry government "interference" of business these days. 

But Bill, I want you to please pay close attention to what happens whenever
there's a civil infraction regarding a copyright. AT&T pulls government
strings to upgrade the infraction to a criminal status, with absolutely no
compulsions against lieing as they did about the value of login.c. They
go running back to the very same "interfering government" for more
protection, a mode they have not yet outgrown. As large as AT&T is, the
megalith behaves as a baby.

Not much different from SE Bell, a former part of AT&T, who initially
valued the E-911 file at $ 77,000  while selling copies for under $ 20.

Bill Vajk