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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.wizards,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Who owns Unix(tm)? (was: Re: Mach, the new standard?)
Message-ID: <26332@sun.uucp>
Date: Sun, 23-Aug-87 19:03:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.26332
Posted: Sun Aug 23 19:03:08 1987
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> ... 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.

This seems a rather bizarre line of reasoning.  By this argument, one could
claim that the customers also own the rights to the 3B20 processor design;
after all, it was developed before they were supposed to be in the computer
business, and it was developed "with subscriber funds", right?  Why not extend
this, and say that the long-distance phone network, and any patents and other
rights for Touch-Tone(TM) technology, etc., etc., etc. also belong to the
customers?  After all, they paid for it, right?

Sorry, but the mere fact that people paid company X for product Y does not mean
that the customers paid for everything that company X developed, and it
definitely doesn't mean that the customers own the rights to everything that
company X developed.  As Phil Ngai pointed out, UNIX was developed as a tool
for internal use (as well as a research project); they may have been enjoined
from selling it as a full-fledged product (I've heard people claim that they
weren't even enjoined from this, but I don't know), but they were entitled to
sell it in unsupported form, just as they sold some other products.  When the
Consent Decree's restrictions were lifted, they had the perfect right to sell
UNIX as a supported product.
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.com