OSF to be V.4 sole licensee?

[Tom Betz]

>From MISWeek, October 10, 1988 - 

One Environment OSF, AT&T Topic
-------------------------------

By Virginia Dudek

Lawrence, MA - In the midst of regular speculation that
AT&T is close to joining the Open Software Foundation (OSF),
inside observers have said that OSF held meetings here over 
the past week with AT&T and representatives from other non-
OSF members to discuss specifics on future UNIX development
and whether the companies would join OSF.

...AT&T has discussed whether to turn over complete Unix 
operating systems development to OSF - allowing OSF to be the
sole licensee of Unix 5.4 - over a transitional period of time.

...Besides the possibility of substituting Unix 5.4 for AIX,
the source at a Unix software firm said AT&T's agenda ranged from 
exempting AT&T from paying a significant OSF member fee, to
allowing AT&T to become a sponsor, contributing Unix code, and to
work on merging Unix 5.4 with AIX.

...Regarding control of Unix development and licensing, the OSF 
sponsor source said AT&T has discussed willingness to let OSF be the 
sole licensee for Unix. The result would be that the next version
of Unix would contain the OSF name, would be OSF property, and Unix
development activity would belong to OSF.

"AT&T is willing to spin off Unix development outside AT&T," the source
said.  "OSF is obviously the only organization set up to do that. (AT&T)
has already made the decision intellectually, what they are trying to do
is do it in a way that they can walk away from it with their heads held
high, and also in a way that makes business sense."
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I have deleted much of the article, focusing on the main points
of the issue.  Can anyone here confirm/deny/amplify on the 
implications of the above?




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