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From: res@ihuxn.UUCP (Rich Strebendt)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: AT&T and the 3B*2
Message-ID: <711@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Jun-84 10:38:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.711
Posted: Tue Jun  5 10:38:51 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Jun-84 06:38:22 EDT
References: <425@hogpc.UUCP> <11100005@acf4.UUCP>, <1981@rlgvax.UUCP> <288@idis.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 104

I just cannot let remarks like the following go unanswered:

> Is it ok for AT&T to unbundle UNIX and still market it under the
> name UNIX?  Definitely.  UNIX is a trademark of BTL or mabe AT&T
> and AT&T can do whatever it wants with its trademarks.  

Not really true.  The law has a great deal to say how a trademark is
used.  Further on the author suggests that all of the net community
join in an effort (because we are not playing the game the way HE wants
it played) to invalidate the trademark.  I am not certain of the legal
status of the participants if such an activity were engaged in ... I am
sure that the net legal experts could have a good deal to say about
this.

> But UNIX
> is also a technical term many people use to mean any operating
> system that is largely derived from one of the versions of UNIX
> developed at BTL research and is faithful to whatever principles
> we feel were most important in the design of research UNIX.

Bullroar.  UNIX is THE Unix Operating System.  It does exist in several
licensed versions (Berkley, XENIX, etc.), but it is the UNIX Operating
System.  Note that I did not say the UNIX grep command, or the UNIX
mail command, or the UNIX whatever command.  While there are many
commands available under a variety of command interpreters (or shells),
which run under the control of the operating system, THEY ARE NOT
UNIX.  Such tools as the nroff facility and the vi editor are very
useful and popular, but THEY ARE NOT UNIX.

> If we feel that AT&T is abusing the name UNIX, we can retaliate
> by using the word UNIX in its technical sense and telling AT&T
> that we think its commercial usage of the word UNIX is a lie.

AT&T abusing the name of one of its premier products?  Come on, grow
up.  What do you mean "technical sense?"  You are using a trademarked
name improperly to cover a programming philosophy, not in the technical
sense of the UNIX Operating System.  If you do not like the marketing
policy of AT&T Technologies or AT&T Information Systems, write them a
letter.  It will be taken into account along with the marketing studies
that show that the vast majority of our customers want to select the
parts of the 3B computers, including software, that they build their
configurations out of.  Just as most do not want a system with the
maximum hardware configuration that we can concoct, so do they not want
the maximum software configuration.  The "unbundling" is simply
packaging this software into reasonable chunks (both functionally and
in cost) to allow the customer to buy as small or as large a
configuration as the CUSTOMER wants to pay for.

> If we continue to use the word UNIX in a noncommercial sense
> to mean something other than what AT&T means when it uses the
> word UNIX, then we establish some sort of "generic" (noncommercial)
> meaning for the word and this weakens the trademark.  

I am not sure of the legal basis for this comment, but I am not sure
that anyone will gain if "UNIX" becomes equivalent to "operating
system" or whatever the author of the quoted article thinks UNIX is.

> AT&T will
> either ignore us or respond by generating more advertisements
> reminding everybody that UNIX is a trademark of BTL (to strengthen
> the trademark).  There is an outside chance that AT&T will
> listen to our gripes.  But don't bet on it.  

If you are an AT&T customer, you can be sure that we will be listening
to your requests, gripes, constructive feedback, or other
communications.  Write a letter to AT&T Technologies Customer Service
(perhaps someone from that organization, if they have time to get onto
the net, could post the correct address).  Or, if you are supplied with
systems from AT&T Information Systems, contact that Customer Service
organization.  If all you want to do is bitch to the wall in the john,
go ahead, but do not expect the wall to solve your problems.  Of
course, I am not promising that the matter will be resolved in
precisely the way you request ... the needs and desires of many
different kinds of customer have to be balanced, along with the costs
of packaging and marketing.  

> Remember who was the "MA" in "MA BELL".  "... reach out and crush 
> someone"

If you hate AT&T as much as this gratutitous slam indicates, you can
buy whatever you want for someone else.  Get another version of UNIX
which is properly and perpetually supported by a professional staff.
Buy your long distance service from a firm that will reliably route
your call to whatever point you wish to reach over high quality
connections, and charges you only for the calls you complete.  

If any firm is crushed by the current state of affairs, it will be
AT&T.  We are still treated as if we were a regulated monopoly without
competition ... and forced to subsidize our competition.  We are
determined to compete successfully in the markets we enter by providing
the products that our customers want; to do otherwise would be insane.
We are still trying to get out from under such legal stumbling blocks
as FCC rules that apply to us and to no other company with which we
compete, and rules that were obsoleted by the divestiture, such as
CI-II.  You can be very sure that those of us in the competitive lines
of business are determined to succeed -- by providing the products all
of our customers want, packaged in the ways that they want to buy the
products.  We will undoubtedly make mistakes ... we are on a learning
curve and realize it.  Constructive feedback is very welcome.  On the
other hand, if bitching to the wall of the john turns you on, go right
ahead ... I could be wrong about the wall solving your problems!

					Rich Strebendt
					...!ihnp4!ihuxn!res


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