Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!umd5!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!ulysses!hector!ekrell
From: ekrell@hector.UUCP (Eduardo Krell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: O'pain Software Foundation: (2) Why is it better than AT&T?
Keywords: OSF, AT&T, standards, competition
Message-ID: <10336@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 28 May 88 14:33:18 GMT
References: <24369@pyramid.pyramid.com> <10978@steinmetz.ge.com> <14181@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <5085@nsc.nsc.com> <11006@steinmetz.ge.com> <503@bacchus.DEC.COM>
Sender: netnews@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com
Reply-To: ekrell@hector (Eduardo Krell)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!umd5!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!ulysses!hector!ekrell
From: ekrell@hector.UUCP (Eduardo Krell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: O'pain Software Foundation: (2) Why is it better than AT&T?
Keywords: OSF, AT&T, standards, competition
Message-ID: <10336@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 28 May 88 14:33:18 GMT
References: <24369@pyramid.pyramid.com> <10978@steinmetz.ge.com> <14181@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <5085@nsc.nsc.com> <11006@steinmetz.ge.com> <503@bacchus.DEC.COM>
Sender: netnews@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com
Reply-To: ekrell@hector (Eduardo Krell)
Lines: 28

In article <503@bacchus.DEC.COM> price@decwrl.UUCP (Chuck Price) writes:

(about SVR3)

>Anything
>you add becomes the property of AT&T, ...

I've read a lot of nonsense in this discussion, but this is clearly
untrue.  I have a Counterpoint Workstation on my desk running their
port of SVR3 to their multiprocessor architecture, and their additions
are clearly Counterpoint proprietary source code. In fact, we had to
sign a non-disclosure agreement with them before they let us have source.

Now, if their code became the property of AT&T by some magic act,
why did we have to sign such an agreement  (after all, it's our code now,
isn't it).

>Question: If AT&T is so committed to open systems, why doesn't
>it join OSF?

Because AT&T owns Unix and doesn't want to give it away (especially to
those who have always benefited from closed/proprietary systems)
and because committee don't design good operating systems/programming
languages/whatever.
    
    Eduardo Krell                   AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ

    UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell		ARPA: ekrell@ulysses.att.com