unix & at&t

[cottrell at nbs-vms.ARPA]

/*
i both agree & disagree with lauren. while at&t did us all a big favor
by inventing unix (not to mention the transistor), it was not the same
at&t. unix was developed outside the normal corporate channels for more
than a decade before at&t was diversified and allowed to compete in the
software market. now unix is a corporate product, with all the
associated nastys. remember they're still THE PHONE COMPANY! america's
favorite pastime is ripping off TPC. remember when everyone connected
extra jacks up in their house and disconnected the bells? howabout
hooking touch tone phones up to lines that just happenned to go thru
touch tone exchanges? why pay more? morality is not absolute, but relative.

what about the $27 special unix issue? at&t isn't doing us all favors
anymore. they've got their corporate claws wrapped around us now that
we're dependent on their product. what about the favors we did them?
there is no other non-vendor operating system around wth such wide
acceptance. the gurus fought managers and administrators who would
rather buy vms, cp/m, msdos, or some other opsys. at&t got the bucks.

this is not to condone wholesale piracy. at&t deserves to make some
bucks off rich corporations, but not private hackers. all some of us
wanted to do was put in a feature we saw in berklix. i understand
that not releasing source was an attempt to avoid proliferation
of non-standard unices. i have mixed feelings about that. the
standardization of unix is useful, but what about the feature i
wanted to put in. at&t has been accused of being berkeley-phobes?
why? i disagree with what kernighan (or was it ritchie?) said in
the oct bstj. no options for cat? no history for the shell? no
multicolumn output for ls? no more? come on. if they eschew such
useful features, i'll just have to put them in myself.

to the issue of piracy in general: ever tape an album? what's it
say on the back? unautorized duplication prohibited. why buy
an album for $x.98 when two of my friends will fit on a $1.99
tdk-sa c90 cassette? have the record companies gone broke? no.
and what about concert tapes. most theaters prohibit taping concerts
because of so-called piracy, probably because of a standard clause
in the record companies or agents contracts. but i want a tape of the
concert i went to. if the record companies would record it i would
buy it. so let me tape it. the people who attempt to sell it for
lotsa bucks will become too visible and be hassled by lawyers, but
what's wrong with private use. ever wonder what is on the majority
of tapes in the entire world? grateful dead concerts. i have
close to 200, and there are millions who have more. when business
cant handle the demand, people will fill it.

i feel the same way about software. people that write it deserve
to be paid for it, but dont squeeze the customers dry. if the price
gets too high, morals get correspondingly lower. i have never been
particularly impressed with businesses morals. why do we have the
consumer product commision, better business bureau, federal drug
administration, aclu, osha, epa, federal trade commission, etc?
the list goes on and on. the gist of it is that these organizations
exists to protect the consumer from the corporations.

from a business/law viewpoint, unix is not unique. from a technical
viewpoint it is. at&t could publish the sources, collect any
interesting user contributed software, sell the result, make a killing,
and probably eliminate many standard os's out of lack of interest.

my interest is in the best software environment possible. i like
to read code just to know how it works. we all like freebies.
has anyone considered the fact that the arpanet is widely used for
mail (ripping the post office off) and technical papers (ripping off
the publishing companies)?

fortunately, i'm in a position where access (to sources) means
that i wont have to test my morality. my uncle (sam) has graciously
procured V6, sys V, and 4.2BSD. just the same, i plan to port
anything i find useful from one system to another (it's already
been paid for, right?). i dont know what i'd do if i was one of those
poor suckers who lived in binary land.

"we dont care. we dont have to. we're the phone company"
"first one's free, kid"

the opinions expressed are my own. nbs neither approves nor 
disapproves of any company or product.
*/