AT&T applies the long silver Screw
Mike O'Dell
mo at seismo.UUCP
Tue Nov 27 06:31:16 AEST 1984
Well boys and girls, in case anyone out there doubted their motives
for a moment, AT&T has just vividly shown their stripes.
I just got off the phone from calling the 800 number to order a copy
of the latest BLTJ and I am hopping mad!!
$27.50 the want for the thing!!!!!!!!!!!! I asked the person at
"AT&T Commercial Sales" what happened to the reasonable price for
reprints of BLTJ and the response was "the price was reasonable when
it was being done by Bell Labs, and they aren't doing it any more."
I think I would have pled the 5th Amendment before saying that.
Moreover, I called the Circulation Group at Bell Labs and they curtly
informed me I had to call the 800 number. At which point I again
asked about the outrageous price, and was told "Well, we aren't
in the giveaway business any more."
Compared to most other CS books printed, it is probably a good value
for the dollars spent, but other issues of BTLJ don't cost that!
Just the one they think everyone will want!!!! To quote from the
front of a recent issue, "Single copies of most issues of the Journal
are available at $5 ($6) foreign,..." While subscriptions to the
Computing Science and Systems section is only $10 per year!!!!!!
Subscriptions for the entire BLTJ are only $35 a year!!!
Well boys and girls, it is a cinch that Unix would have never
become what it has (and AT&T would probably not have had a
post-divestiture product!) if they had been this way in the
beginning. This is pretty shoddy treatment of the people who
have worked to make it possible for AT&T to display such arrogance.
"Unix: from now on, consider it dead."
-Mike O'Dell
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