Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!mcnc!xanth!kent
From: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.wizards,comp.os.misc
Subject: Who owns Unix(tm)? (was: Re: Mach, the new standard?)
Message-ID: <2232@xanth.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: xanth.2232
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 22:27:57 EDT
References: <1665@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <8381@utzoo.UUCP> <797@Pescadero.ARPA> <1257@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <292@nuchat.UUCP> <18012@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Reply-To: kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan)
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk Va.
Lines: 44
Keywords: Gross overbearing ripoff!
Summary: Developed when AT&T was not in the computer business, with subscriber funds!
Xref: mnetor comp.arch:1878 comp.unix.wizards:3848 comp.os.misc:91

In article <18012@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes:
>In article <292@nuchat.UUCP> steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) writes:
><In article <1257@spice.cs.cmu.edu<, rfr@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Rick Rashid) writes:
><< Proof of a 4.3 license is required before we can send a tape.  Please keep
><
><Which in turn requires proof of an AT&T v7 liscense, right?  Will
><we ever again have an operating system that doesn't represent a
><royalty stream for ma bell?
>
>This is one of the reasons the Free Software Foundation was set up.
>Why don't you donate some money (tax deductable) to them if you really
>feel strongly about it? 

[Could I contribute code?  Poverty prevails!]

Well, this one has been creating a little cerebral ulcer for a really
long time, might as well cast a Net, and catch some flames...

Among a long list of other phone injustices (like paying operator
rates for pay phone calls now handled by robots...), the gall of AT&T
claiming to "own" Unix(tm) really gets to me.  At the time Unix was
developed, WITH SUBSCRIBER FUNDS, AT&T was a regulated monopoly,
specifically prohibited from being in the computer business.  Suddenly
divesture happens, and this magig product springs forth full grown
from Zeus' forehead.  Riiiight!  Seems to me, right off hand, that an
awfully good case could be made that the customers, NOT Ma Bell, own
Unix.  Considering the AT&T customer base, that is pretty much the
mortal equivalent of public domain.

Comments?  (Flames I know I'm gonna get...reasoned comments???)

Lacking this, the dozens of other companies running Unix and Unix
clones, and suffering from user and code portability problems due to
the incompatibility of operating systems developed in parallel from a
common base, would probably be very clever to form a non-profit
consortium to create a public domain Unix-with-tools, and make it well
supported, totally portable, and widely available.  Or, if one just
happened to be sitting around ready to use ;-), supplying it with
money and people-on-sabbatical to get the job done.

(While I'm dreaming, why couldn't it be written in some maintainable
language, like Modula II or Ada(tm), while I'm dreaming...)

Kent, the man from xanth.