Unix and AT&T

[lauren at RAND-UNIX.ARPA]

I'm getting somewhat disgusted at these messages trying to find
ways to ridicule the Unix trade secret agreements by poking holes
in this or that.  It's as if people are now saying that since
AT&T *didn't* behave in a dictatorial manner when handling Unix
licenses (by not making *every* person who *touches* the system
sign *everything*, and not designing the system so that *nothing* was
readable, etc.) they are now subject to being laughed at.  People
seem to be saying that since AT&T *didn't* act like a scrooge
when it came to making the system available, and *didn't* play
big brother watching over all Unix users 24/hrs/day, they are 
now fair game for ridicule.  Hogwash.

I think these attitudes show a profound lack of ethics, regardless
of the legal issues (and those issues are considerably
more complex than messages in this list might lead one
to believe -- there's been one hell of a lot of MISinformation
being passed around this list on this topic.)

I'd like to know where some of these Unix gurus would be today
if AT&T hadn't used trade secret licensing (just about the only
way they had to make Unix available at the time) in the manner
they did.  Most likely many of you would be spending all your
time doing FORTRAN programming on a TOPS-20 system today.
(No, I'm not knocking TOPS-20 -- not here, anyway...)

I for one (and I don't care if I'm a cult of one on this score)
think that AT&T deserves one hell of a lot more respect on this
issue than many people seem to be giving them.

A personal opinion, of course.

--Lauren--