Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1a 12/4/83; site rlgvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!guy From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) Newsgroups: net.micro,net.followup Subject: Re: 3B2 (partitioning of UNIX(tm)) Message-ID: <2031@rlgvax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 22-Jun-84 01:54:50 EDT Article-I.D.: rlgvax.2031 Posted: Fri Jun 22 01:54:50 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 05:21:21 EDT References: <2721@ecsvax.UUCP> Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA Lines: 33 > Considering the volume of traffic in net.bugs.all, the concept of a "binary > licence" represents a horrible partitioning, in my humble opinion, resulting > in an unattractive (for the price) operating system. C'est la guerre. This isn't a concept new with the 3B2. Much of the "UNIX explosion" was set off by the binary sublicense plan introduced by AT&T back in '79-'80 with V7! The V7 source license cost about $28K; a single-user binary license cost $700 at most. The difference between $28K and $700 is very attractive to me. The per-user marginal cost of the binary license was, if I remember correctly, $250, so a 16-user system would cost around $4K, which is still considerably less than $28K. If you're selling hardware for about $28K, that software cost is not negligible. Have you ever read a year's worth of DEC's Software Dispatches for one of their OSes, or IBM's APAR/PTF reports (if they send them out), or any other vendor's bug report lists? UNIX isn't unique in this regard. Yes, it has bugs. Most large software products do. Most buyers of 3B2s - or, at least, buyers in the marketplace AT&T is aiming at - wouldn't be able to fix them by stuffing in the fix from net.bugs.whatever. > I asked the AT&T salesman about source licences, and he had no idea whether > I could get one at all, far less what it would cost. This thing isn't being > marketed as a hacker's toy; AT&T seems to be striving for the office > automation market. AT&T was selling System V source licenses (PDP-11/VAX-11) for $43K. And yes, that's probably the market an AT&T salesperson or marketer would say they're aiming the box at. That's not surprising; there are a lot more potential purchasers of small business or office automation micros than there are potential hackers out there. Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy