AT&T and Unix - The real issue

[John McNamee]

On January 14 I sent out a flame about the cost of Unix source code for
people not at educational institutions. It was in reply to messages from
Lauren Weinstein and Barry Shein. They were saying that AT&T is being very
nice and we should ALL be thankful that they give sources away cheap.
Neither made any mention of the fact that sources are only cheap if you
are an educational institution, and that Joe Random Hacker (thats me) is
left out in the cold when he wants sources for his home Unix machine.

Included in my flame were comments about what a hacker can do if he wants
Unix sources for his machine. One of the options is to steal them. I said
that I would probably do that rather than go without. That is against the
law (unless there is a hole in the AT&T license, which I think there is,
but I dont have the money for legal fees to be a test case). Its not that
I am the only person who ever thought of stealing the Unix sources (recent
postings to Unix-Wizards indicate that lots of people have already done it),
its just that I said so in public.

I have a talent for saying in public that I do things that lots of other
people do, but they just keep quiet about it. So I eat sh*t for it, and most
people can pat themselves on the back for being Mr. or Mrs. Morality and
telling me what a jerk I am. Of course they will continue to ignore the real
problem, having focused instead on what a bad person I am.

Here is my origial message again, minus any statement about stealing sources.
Would anybody care to comment on the REAL issue here, or do you all think that
small users are left out in the cold, but derserve it because they cant afford
a $40k source license?

>To: lauren at rand-unix, root%bostonu.csnet at csnet-relay
>Subject: Re: AT&T and Unix
>
>I'm happy that you two are able to obtain Unix source code at a reasonable
>price. AT&T wants $40k from me. Maybe if AT&T were doing something nice for
>me I might not think about holes in their license. I'm just a single hacker,
>not connected to any university that got Unix cheap, so it costs me the full
>$40k if I want the sources legally. All your comments about how easy it is
>to change Unix, how enlightened AT&T is to make it available cheap, and how
>much better off we all are because AT&T is like this: THEY DONT APPLY TO
>PEOPLE WHO ARENT AT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND CANT AFFORD $40,000. While
>there is some argument that everybody is better off because Berkeley got
>Unix cheap, that isnt enough to satisfy me.
> ....
>So before you start saying how nice AT&T is, think about who they are being
>nice to. To you they may be giving cheap sources, but they are saying "Let
>them eat binaries" to the rest of us.
--

			John McNamee
		..!decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl!jpm
			jpm at BNL.ARPA