Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!teddy!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!cottrell@nbs-vms.ARPA From: cottrell@nbs-vms.ARPA Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: unix & at&t Message-ID: <7420@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Wed, 16-Jan-85 14:30:27 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.7420 Posted: Wed Jan 16 14:30:27 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 20-Jan-85 06:03:16 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 79 /* i both agree & disagree with lauren. while at&t did us all a big favor by inventing unix (not to mention the transistor), it was not the same at&t. unix was developed outside the normal corporate channels for more than a decade before at&t was diversified and allowed to compete in the software market. now unix is a corporate product, with all the associated nastys. remember they're still THE PHONE COMPANY! america's favorite pastime is ripping off TPC. remember when everyone connected extra jacks up in their house and disconnected the bells? howabout hooking touch tone phones up to lines that just happenned to go thru touch tone exchanges? why pay more? morality is not absolute, but relative. what about the $27 special unix issue? at&t isn't doing us all favors anymore. they've got their corporate claws wrapped around us now that we're dependent on their product. what about the favors we did them? there is no other non-vendor operating system around wth such wide acceptance. the gurus fought managers and administrators who would rather buy vms, cp/m, msdos, or some other opsys. at&t got the bucks. this is not to condone wholesale piracy. at&t deserves to make some bucks off rich corporations, but not private hackers. all some of us wanted to do was put in a feature we saw in berklix. i understand that not releasing source was an attempt to avoid proliferation of non-standard unices. i have mixed feelings about that. the standardization of unix is useful, but what about the feature i wanted to put in. at&t has been accused of being berkeley-phobes? why? i disagree with what kernighan (or was it ritchie?) said in the oct bstj. no options for cat? no history for the shell? no multicolumn output for ls? no more? come on. if they eschew such useful features, i'll just have to put them in myself. to the issue of piracy in general: ever tape an album? what's it say on the back? unautorized duplication prohibited. why buy an album for $x.98 when two of my friends will fit on a $1.99 tdk-sa c90 cassette? have the record companies gone broke? no. and what about concert tapes. most theaters prohibit taping concerts because of so-called piracy, probably because of a standard clause in the record companies or agents contracts. but i want a tape of the concert i went to. if the record companies would record it i would buy it. so let me tape it. the people who attempt to sell it for lotsa bucks will become too visible and be hassled by lawyers, but what's wrong with private use. ever wonder what is on the majority of tapes in the entire world? grateful dead concerts. i have close to 200, and there are millions who have more. when business cant handle the demand, people will fill it. i feel the same way about software. people that write it deserve to be paid for it, but dont squeeze the customers dry. if the price gets too high, morals get correspondingly lower. i have never been particularly impressed with businesses morals. why do we have the consumer product commision, better business bureau, federal drug administration, aclu, osha, epa, federal trade commission, etc? the list goes on and on. the gist of it is that these organizations exists to protect the consumer from the corporations. from a business/law viewpoint, unix is not unique. from a technical viewpoint it is. at&t could publish the sources, collect any interesting user contributed software, sell the result, make a killing, and probably eliminate many standard os's out of lack of interest. my interest is in the best software environment possible. i like to read code just to know how it works. we all like freebies. has anyone considered the fact that the arpanet is widely used for mail (ripping the post office off) and technical papers (ripping off the publishing companies)? fortunately, i'm in a position where access (to sources) means that i wont have to test my morality. my uncle (sam) has graciously procured V6, sys V, and 4.2BSD. just the same, i plan to port anything i find useful from one system to another (it's already been paid for, right?). i dont know what i'd do if i was one of those poor suckers who lived in binary land. "we dont care. we dont have to. we're the phone company" "first one's free, kid" the opinions expressed are my own. nbs neither approves nor disapproves of any company or product. */