motives for AT&T, etc (was re: att & osf)

[Chris Torek]

In article <3395 at vpk4.UUCP> scott at attcan.UUCP (Scott MacQuarrie) responds
to the line:
>>It is only the greed of the corporate environment that makes ATT want to
>>have anything to do with UNIX ....

with a number of reasonable and largely accurate (if somewhat slanted)
points.  Nonetheless, were it not for `greed' (you may tone this down
to `a desire to be paid well for a job well done' if you wish), few if
any corporations would even exist.  In this particular sense (`greed'
as a foundation for capitalism, as `honesty' is a foundation for
socialism, which tells you why capitalism works more often :-/ [this is
a `wry smile' face]), `greed' is not, or not wholly, negative.  Indeed,
sufficently-enlightened greed is quite healthy.

>When was the last time you saw a major computer vendor give source to any
>of its products to anyone!

I think the only reason AT&T sells source licenses is historical:

    - When Unix licensing began, AT&T could not sell software, nor were
      there any solid portents of the divestiture.  Hence there was no
      reason *not* to; when Thompson et al. asked, a `yes' was more or
      less as easy as a `no', and had some beneficial side effects.

    - Now that Unix(TM)(R)(C)(Pat.Pend.)(K)(U) is a product, it is
      apparent to some/many that a large part of Unix's desirability
      stems from familiarity.  Unix has technical merits, yes; but it
      also obvious that, had Bell Labs never distributed versions of
      Unix, few would know of it, and few would push those merits hard
      enough to convince the people who hold the purse-strings.  As it
      is, college graduates---who make up the largest group of
      programmers entering the marketplace---are often familiar with
      Unix, and will therefore ask for it.  Since so much Unix software
      is portable, and these people know it and can demonstrate it,
      Unix may win out over a technically superior O/S for a particular
      application simply because most of the needed software already
      exists.

    - It is to AT&Ts advantage, at present, to have Unix ported to
      larger computers (Alliant, Encore, Cray): it gives more support
      to their position of supplanting IBM: `use our machines and you
      can retain your old software when you need to expand.'

Finally, although it is a minor point:

    - The mechanisms for source distribution are already in place.

Enlightened greed says that selling source licenses is working.  I
suspect that if other vendors were in a similar position, they would
act similarly.  The reasons you cannot get VMS or MVS sources are also
more historical than anything else.  [Incidentally, you *can* get
sources from IBM in some cases, but what you get may not be what you
expected.]  As vendors go, AT&T is neither the valiant knight in
shining armour, saving us from the evil fate of machine-dependency, nor
is it the villain in black, tying us to the railroad tracks as the
train tootles towards us.  It is simply a corporation, doing what
corporations do, and (luckily for us) enlightened as to the effects
of selling source.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris