[TUHS] Re: Early Unix Growth: Number of “Installations” or Licences?

[Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>]

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On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 9:25 PM steve jenkin <sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au>
wrote:

> I’ve been wondering about the growth of Unix and if there’s any good data
> available.
>
> There’s the Early Unix Epoch, which probably ends with the Unix Support
> Group assuming the distribution role, plus providing / distributing their
> version of the code.
>
> Later there’s commercial Unix:
>         System III and System V, I guess.
>
> BSD, until the lawsuit was resolved, required a Source code license, but
> their installation count is important in pre-Commercial Unix.
>
> Large licensees like SUN, HP & IBM (AIX) may not have published license
> counts for their versions - but then, were their derivatives “Unix” or
> something else?
>
>
> Warner Loch’s paper has data to around 1978 [below].
>
> I’ve no idea where to find data for USG issued licences, or if the number
> of binary & source licences were ever reported in the Commercial Era by
> AT&T.
>
> I’ll not be the first person who’s gone down this road, but my Search Fu
> isn’t good enough to find them.
>
> Wondering if anyone on the list can point me at resources, even a bunch of
> annual reports.
>
> I don’t mind manually pulling out the data I’m interested in. But why
> reinvent the wheel if the work is already done?
>
> steve
>
> ===============
>
> numbers extracted from Warner Loch’s paper.
>

I think he spells his last name "Losh" :)

>
> <
> https://papers.freebsd.org/2020/FOSDEM/losh-Hidden_early_history_of_Unix.files/slides.pdf
> >
>
>        2nd Edn June 1972                 10 installations
>        3rd Edn February 1973             16
>        4th Edn November 1973             >20, or 25
>
>                 July 74                                 CACM paper "Unix
> Time Sharing System” after which external interest exploded
>
>        6th Edn 1975                             ???
>        7th Edn March 1978                       600+,  >300 inside Bell
> System, "even more have been licensed to outside users”
>

These were the numbers that I could find in contemporary documentation. 5th
and 6th edition didn't have a number like the manuals up to the 4th
edition. I got the 7th edition from somewhere I don't recall, but as the
6th and 7th editions were widely licensed and started having lots of users
based on ports that happened, it can be hard to put numbers down.

Warner


> ===============
>
> --
> Steve Jenkin,
> 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
> PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
>
> mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin
>
>

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