From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: clemc@ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 13:39:03 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] V7 Addendem In-Reply-To: <201712061615.vB6GFKYd013874@darkstar.fourwinds.com> References: <20171206010736.GA16514@minnie.tuhs.org> <1512576671.3978479.1196132360.0C9F95D9@webmail.messagingengine.com> <201712061615.vB6GFKYd013874@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Jon Steinhart wrote: > Random832 writes: > > On Tue, Dec 5, 2017, at 20:07, Warren Toomey wrote: > > > Ken tried to send it out, but the lawyers kept > > > stalling and stalling and stalling. > > > > > > When the lawyers found out about it, they called every > > > licensee and threatened them with dire consequences if they > > > didn’t destroy the tape, after trying to find out how they got > > > the tape. I would guess that no one would actually tell them > > > how they came by the tape (I didn’t). > > > > I have a question, if anyone has any idea... is there any recorded > > knowledge about *who was driving*? That is, beyond "the lawyers", who on > > the business side of AT&T was making the policy decisions that led to > > the various sometimes bizarre legal actions that caused problems for the > > Unix world, and to what end (was there some way they expected to profit? > > liability concerns?) > > > > In other words, what was the basis of the legal department's mandate to > > try to shut these things down? (This question is also something I've > > wondered for some non-Unix stuff like the E911 document, but that's not > > relevant to this list) > > Can't answer your question directly, but I think that some of this was > the result of the prior consent decree banning them from being in the > data business. I seem to recall that it was technically illegal for > them to sell SW and don't know how giving it away would have been viewed. > ​I really think Jon is correct here. The behavior was all left over from the 1956 consent decree, which settled the 1949 anti-trust case against AT&T. As the recipients of the AT&T IP, we used to refer the behavior as "UNIX was abandoned on your doorstep." Throughout the 60s and 70s, the AT&T sr management from the CEO on down, were terrified of another anti-trust case. And of course they got one and we all know what judge Green did to resolve that in 1980. I described the activities/actions in detail in my paper: *"**UNIX: A View from the Field as We Played the Game" *which I gave last fall in Paris​. The proceeding are supposed to go on line at some point. Send me email if you want the details and I'll send you a PDF. I'm holding off cutting and pasting here for reasons of brevity. For an legal analysis I also recommend: *“AT&T Divestiture & the Telecommunications Market”,* John Pinheiro, Berkeley Technical Law Journal, 303, September 1987, Volume 2, Issue 2, Article 5 which I cite in my paper. Clem -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: