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From: rkh@mtune.ATT.COM (Robert Halloran)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.wizards,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Who owns Unix(tm)? (was: Re: Mach, the new standard?)
Message-ID: <1155@mtune.ATT.COM>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 09:20:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtune.1155
Posted: Mon Aug 24 09:20:45 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Aug-87 01:47:49 EDT
References: <1665@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <8381@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: rkh@mtune.UUCP (Robert Halloran)
Organization: AT&T ISL Middletown NJ USA
Lines: 38
Xref: mnetor comp.arch:1895 comp.unix.wizards:3858 comp.os.misc:95

In article <2232@xanth.UUCP> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>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.

As I recall hearing the background story, Unix was put together by the
former AT&T participants in the Multics project as a quick hack alternative 
to DEC's offerings for the PDP-x machine.  It was budgeted as a office
word processing system for some surplus DEC hardware laying around
Bell Labs.  Then people starting seeing it working and wanted copies.
For years, educational institutions could get it for basically a
copying charge.  Commercial types who wanted it could only buy a
source tape for some thousands of dollars, and Bell was specifically
prohibited from providing ANY support to them; 'Here's your tape;
we never want to see you again'.  So pre-breakup, it WAS in effect
free software.

Saying that the customers own Bell/AT&T item X because they pay for
phone service would imply to me that everyone should get a free
phone, that anything using transistors should be free (remember
where the initial work was done? :-)), etc.  Anyone who thinks a
product is maintained and enhanced 'for free' has an unrealistic
view of the commercial world.
						Bob Halloran
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