Source pricing...

Craig Jackson dricej at drilex.UUCP
Sat Sep 3 05:48:30 AEST 1988


In article <25909 at ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> bostic at ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Keith Bostic) writes:
>In article <2185 at sultra.UUCP>, dtynan at sultra.UUCP (Dermot Tynan) writes:
>> I once heard
>> it cost $80K for a BSD source licence.  How accurate is that?
>
>Not even slightly.
>
>Any significant expense associated with getting 4BSD results from having
>to have an AT&T source license, 32V or later.  As AT&T will no longer sell
>you a 32V license, you have to buy the expensive System V ones.  Once you
>have an AT&T license you can get 4.3BSD for $1000.  Once you have 4.3BSD,
>you can get the latest/greatest, 4.3BSD-tahoe, for $400 (6250bpi) or $450
>(1600bpi).
>
>Keith Bostic

What Keith says is correct (it should be).  But the catch is in getting the
AT&T license; things from Berkeley have always been available for
reasonable charges.

AT&T today will only sell you a SVr3 license, and that's the only way to
buy a 32V license.  The 32V license cost $40,000 in 1980;
the SVr3 license was $65,000 the last time I looked.  SVr3.1 may be even
more.

These are commercial prices; the academic prices have at times been 
up to two orders of magnitude less.

These are also single-machine prices.  To put your source on two machines,
you owe another fee (~$16,000).


-- 
Craig Jackson
UUCP: {harvard!axiom,linus!axiom,ll-xn}!drilex!dricej
BIX:  cjackson



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