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!jpm@bnl.ARPA From: John McNameeNewsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: AT&T and Unix Message-ID: <7341@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 01:26:01 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.7341 Posted: Tue Jan 15 01:26:01 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 20-Jan-85 01:41:02 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 39 >The mass market of UNIX will consist of people who have no need to >mess around with their O.S. internals. Who said anything about the mass market? I never said I was a member of the mass market. But since you bring it up, my view is that since the mass market is where most of the users will be, that is where AT&T should plan to make their money. AT&T could sell cheap sources to hackers, the hackers would generate software that the mass market might want to run, and thus more people will buy Unix based machines. AT&T would sell more Unix licenses because more members of the mass market would be interested in machines running Unix based on the software dveloped by the hackers. Everybody wins. But this will never happen, and I'm not asking it to. I would be happy if AT&T would charge people based on their intended use: $40k if you intend to make money off Unix and cheap if you only want it for hacking. My personal interest is not making money selling Unix software. >...Adaptations of UNIX to these >packages will be made by OEMs and VARs who will pay the license fee >and amortize the cost over all the systems they will sell. You too >can form a company to remarket UNIX... But I dont want to remarket or sell anything. I'm not in this as a business. Thats the point that everybody misses. I just want a nice environment to hack in on my home machine. Let AT&T charge a fortune to the people who intend to make money off of Unix. >I would love a $40,000 automobile, but I do not gripe at Ferrari for >not selling it to me for $500. I think thats a bad analogy. You cant compare software with physical items. If Ferrari were to sell you a $40k car for $500 they would take a loss on materials and not be able to sell it to smebody else. If AT&T were to sell Unix sources for $500 they would still make money on the materials and still be able to sell Unix to other people. -- John McNamee ..!decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl!jpm jpm@BNL.ARPA