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Path: utzoo!linus!vaxine!wjh12!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!gnu
From: gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: net.lan
Subject: Re: Ethernet addressing -- and UPC assignment
Message-ID: <1245@sun.uucp>
Date: Mon, 11-Jun-84 21:35:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.1245
Posted: Mon Jun 11 21:35:31 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Jun-84 06:35:15 EDT
References: <3564@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 11

I hate to tell you, but there is a company already that does this.
They assign the numbers used for Universal Product Codes and hold a
monopoly on the assignment.  They charge over $100 to assign you
a number -- I think it may be more like $1000.

Somehow they locked in the coding scheme so there were no extra
fields (that could be used to distinguish numbers from different
registries) and locked in the major chain stores such that the
chains would only buy things with upc on them.  Thus to sell to that
market you just have to ante up the bucks for these guys to tear
off a number and send it to you.