Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: att & osf
Keywords: att & osf
Message-ID: <8265@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 29 Jul 88 06:02:35 GMT
References: <4964@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 31

In article <4964@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> dono@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Don OConnell) writes:
>Strange "owner".
>
>They didn't want anything to do with it's creation or even support
>until a lot of different people were enthralled with it.

Sorry to add to the noise, but that is completely incorrect.
Bell Labs employees created UNIX with the consent of their employer.
AT&T was legally prohibited (because of being a protected
monopoly) from entering the software business.  They nevertheless
made the Bell Labs UNIX technology available under license, with
an absurdly low rate (by comparison with commercial operating
systems) for educational institutions.  This was true since the
early days of UNIX (5th Edition).  By then UNIX had already
started to spread inside the Bell System, and AT&T invested
resources in this development.  Various versions of UNIX were (and
are) widely used within the Bell Operating Companies and elsewhere
in AT&T, and there has been at least one official support
organization in AT&T since at least 1976, probably earlier.  What
more could one have expected?

Licensees outside the Bell System could not legally be provided
support.  All one got was one or two magtapes, or RK05 cartridges,
and a cheaply-reproduced two-volume set of documentation, then
the licensee was "on his own".  (USENIX was formed originally as
a mutual licensee aid organization.)  Despite the lack of support,
marketing, etc. UNIX caught on like wildfire.

After Judge Green initiated the divestiture, AT&T could enter
the computer and software business.  It did take them a couple of
years to catch on to the business, since the free market is rather
different from the Bell System.