Berkeley Flame and AT&T

[Mike O'Dell]

I certainly cannot claim any level of non-bias, in fact would not even
if I could.

I suggest that AT&T would not even be in the Unix business in any
serious way if it weren't for the people at Berkeley and Purdue ECN
and Toronto and Rand and all the other folks who have been committed
long before it was "fashionable."  I will go even further.
I suggest that AT&T owes an irrepayable debt to the US Computer
Science Departments for (1) training a generation of software
engineers who can use and support what AT&T is now selling,
and (2) for creating a pool of users who demand that same product.

I am strongly against the divisiveness in the Unix community,
and wish the scism could be be healed in some productive way.
But there are lots of us Ol' Timers who bristle when we read
AT&T advertising copy which derides all the difficult, ground-breaking
work which has gone before.  4 years ago I was running an 11/70
version 6 system from George Goble at Purdue ECN which had *ALL*
the System V performance hacks, except the 1K filesystem, and some
System V still doesn't have.  That system routinely supported 50-60
users. I am glad to see AT&T is finally deciding to take advantage
of what has gone before. 

	Callin' 'em as he sees 'em,

		-Michael D. O'Dell