[TUHS] UNIX/AT&T patent licensing

[Warren Toomey <wkt@tuhs.org>]

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All, I got this e-mail forwarded on from John Fox via Eric S. Raymond.

Cheers, Warren


    Hi Eric, I think you might find this interesting.

    I have a 2001 copy of your book. I dog-eared page 9 twenty years ago
    because of this section:

        It spread very rapidly with AT&T, in spite of the lack of any
        formal support program for it. By 1980 it had spread to a large
        number of university and research computing sites, and thousands
        of hackers considered it home. 


    Regarding the "spread", I believe one of the contributing factors
    was AT&T's decision to give the source code away to universities.
    And in doing so, unwittingly provided the fertile soil for open
    source development.

    I happen to know the man who made that decision. He was my
    father-in-law. He died Tuesday. He had no idea what UNIX was, and
    had no idea what his decision helped to create. Funny when things we
    do have such a major impact without us even knowing. That was
    certainly true in this case.

    Anyway, I thought you'd be interested to know. His name is John
    (Jack) H. Bolt. He was 95.

    PS, before making the decision, he called Ken Olson at DEC to see if
    he'd be interested in buying it, lock, stock, and barrel. Jack's
    opening offer was $250k. Olson wasn't interested. And on that,
    Jack's decision was made.

    John Fox



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