[TUHS] List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[TUHS] List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Tom Lyon via TUHS]

I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX licensees -
from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?

Can anyone point me to it?

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Clem Cole via TUHS]

I believe one of the earliest UNIX News has names and contact info for many
other of the first licensees.

Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual


On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 7:07 PM Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX licensees -
> from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
>
> Can anyone point me to it?
>

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Jonathan Gray via TUHS]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 04:07:01PM -0800, Tom Lyon via TUHS wrote:
> I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX licensees -
> from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
> 
> Can anyone point me to it?

tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes
ken/distr/form.m
https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/ken-1975-list

A timeline of licenses/installs:
https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/dates.pdf

number of licenses/installs at various times:
https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/numbers.pdf

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Clem Cole via TUHS]

Found it:
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/Usenix/Early_Newsletters/19750730-unix-news-n1.pdf


Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual


On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 7:17 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> I believe one of the earliest UNIX News has names and contact info for
> many other of the first licensees.
>
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 7:07 PM Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:
>
>> I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX licensees -
>> from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
>>
>> Can anyone point me to it?
>>
>

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Tom Lyon via TUHS]

Thanks, Jonathan.

I'm guessing now that Ken's 1975 list was a list of licensees for V6, or
perhaps those who had already received a tape.
Anyone know if V4/5 users needed a new license for V6?


On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 4:41 PM Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 04:07:01PM -0800, Tom Lyon via TUHS wrote:
> > I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX licensees -
> > from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
> >
> > Can anyone point me to it?
>
> tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes
> ken/distr/form.m
> https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/ken-1975-list
>
> A timeline of licenses/installs:
> https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/dates.pdf
>
> number of licenses/installs at various times:
> https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/numbers.pdf
>

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[George Michaelson via TUHS]

Gosh. If that address list at the end is indicative of recent people
playing..

Jeff Tansley at Edinburgh Uni, and Prof Heath at Heriot-Watt. So both
Edinburgh uni were exploring things. And Louvain and Jerusalem uni.  I
think I met Tansley (as a kid probably - I was 14 in 1975. he'd have come
to a garden party or something my parents were very hospitable in the
academic fried finger food and drinks circuit)

-G



On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 11:29 AM Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> Thanks, Jonathan.
>
> I'm guessing now that Ken's 1975 list was a list of licensees for V6, or
> perhaps those who had already received a tape.
> Anyone know if V4/5 users needed a new license for V6?
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 4:41 PM Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 04:07:01PM -0800, Tom Lyon via TUHS wrote:
> > > I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX
> licensees -
> > > from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
> > >
> > > Can anyone point me to it?
> >
> > tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes
> > ken/distr/form.m
> > https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/ken-1975-list
> >
> > A timeline of licenses/installs:
> > https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/dates.pdf
> >
> > number of licenses/installs at various times:
> > https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/numbers.pdf
> >
>

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Jacobson, Doug W [E CPE] via TUHS]

Very fun, this got me to look through my files, and I found my V6 license dated Feb 1980.  There was also one dated March 1977, but I'm not sure we executed it.  Both were licensed to the same CPU.  The 1977 agreement listed UNIX v6, and the 1980 agreement listed Mini-UNIX v6.  Also found the V7 license and several BSD ones.

Doug


-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Gray via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 6:41 PM
To: Tom Lyon <pugs78@gmail.com>
Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 04:07:01PM -0800, Tom Lyon via TUHS wrote:
> I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX 
> licensees - from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
> 
> Can anyone point me to it?

tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes
ken/distr/form.m
https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/ken-1975-list

A timeline of licenses/installs:
https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/dates.pdf

number of licenses/installs at various times:
https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees/blob/main/numbers.pdf

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Thalia Archibald via TUHS]

On Feb 17, 2026, at 18:28, Tom Lyon wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 4:41 PM Jonathan Gray wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 04:07:01PM -0800, Tom Lyon wrote:
>>> I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX licensees -
>>> from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
>> 
>> https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees
> 
> I'm guessing now that Ken's 1975 list was a list of licensees for V6, or
> perhaps those who had already received a tape.

Hi Tom,

I made an annotated bibliography of hundreds of early UNIX sources organized by
institution or publication. I created it while researching the context of the
Utah V4 tape. Since it wasn’t used for any work—it was a candidate OS for the
new graphics lab, but DEC DOS was used instead—, no one had written anything
about our early UNIX involvement and I had to search generally for other early
users. My project focuses on early users, including licensee lists, licenses,
UNIX-related publications, and graphics work.
    https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history

Ken’s 1975 list is the earliest licensee list I know of. It’s a form letter file
which has templated letters that were sent to early users with variable
substitutions for each user. Although the date would suggest these are V6
licensees, it’s representative of who Ken mailed about licensing UNIX since V4.
    https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/main/lists/1975-06-27_ken/y

I reverse engineered its format and am working on recovering the garbage
collected blocks. The order appears to be when he added them to the form
database, replying to batches of licensing inquiries. After finishing my
analysis, I will have a partial order of when memory blocks were written in the
file, which could hopefully reveal who was in the list before certain letters
were sent.
    https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-form-read

The first UNIX News list from a month later appears to be lightly reformatted
from Ken’s list, trimmed to just those who subscribed. I’ve uploaded more
legible scan of that issue I requested from Waterloo, which allowed me to
correct my transcription.
    https://archive.org/details/unix_news_july-30-1975_waterloo/page/8/mode/2up
    https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/main/lists/1975-07-30_news.txt

Hopefully you can make use of this. Enjoy!

Thalia

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Thalia Archibald via TUHS]

On Feb 18, 2026, at 11:17, Jacobson, Doug W [E CPE] wrote:
> Very fun, this got me to look through my files, and I found my V6 license dated Feb 1980.  There was also one dated March 1977, but I'm not sure we executed it.  Both were licensed to the same CPU.  The 1977 agreement listed UNIX v6, and the 1980 agreement listed Mini-UNIX v6.  Also found the V7 license and several BSD ones.
> 
> Doug

Hi Doug,

I’ve been gathering UNIX license agreements and would be very interested to add
those. I haven’t seen a Mini-UNIX license and the 1977 license from KU Leuven is
missing several pages. They change over time and the distribution contents
description is especially interesting.
    https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22UNIX+license%22&sort=date
    https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/tree/main/licenses

Thalia

[TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

[Ron Natalie via TUHS]

Some of the names on that list bring back memories.    Bill Huggins was 
one of my professors at JHU.   I suspect he was on the license as he. 
Was chair of the EE department (Hopkins had no CS department at the 
time.  If you wanted to do computers you were either in EE or math).  He 
wasn’t a Unix guy mainly but a RSTS Basic Plus guy.   It was a deal we 
made to get basic running on emulation on UNIX that allowed us to run 
UNIX full time.

Bill confided in me to not ever move when you were as old as he was (I 
was only 20 at the time).  He says he was forced to shuffle through 
things that he knew then he would never finish.




------ Original Message ------
From "Thalia Archibald via TUHS" <tuhs@tuhs.org>
To "Tom Lyon" <pugs78@gmail.com>
Cc "Jonathan Gray" <jsg@jsg.id.au>; tuhs@tuhs.org
Date 2/19/2026 21:38:56
Subject [TUHS] Re: List of earliest UNIX licensees?

>On Feb 17, 2026, at 18:28, Tom Lyon wrote:
>>  On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 4:41 PM Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>>  On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 04:07:01PM -0800, Tom Lyon wrote:
>>>>  I seem to recall seeing somewhere a list of the earliest UNIX licensees -
>>>>  from one of Ken's notebooks, maybe?
>>>
>>>https://github.com/jonathangray/unix-licensees
>>
>>  I'm guessing now that Ken's 1975 list was a list of licensees for V6, or
>>  perhaps those who had already received a tape.
>
>Hi Tom,
>
>I made an annotated bibliography of hundreds of early UNIX sources organized by
>institution or publication. I created it while researching the context of the
>Utah V4 tape. Since it wasn’t used for any work—it was a candidate OS for the
>new graphics lab, but DEC DOS was used instead—, no one had written anything
>about our early UNIX involvement and I had to search generally for other early
>users. My project focuses on early users, including licensee lists, licenses,
>UNIX-related publications, and graphics work.
>https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history
>
>Ken’s 1975 list is the earliest licensee list I know of. It’s a form letter file
>which has templated letters that were sent to early users with variable
>substitutions for each user. Although the date would suggest these are V6
>licensees, it’s representative of who Ken mailed about licensing UNIX since V4.
>https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/main/lists/1975-06-27_ken/y
>
>I reverse engineered its format and am working on recovering the garbage
>collected blocks. The order appears to be when he added them to the form
>database, replying to batches of licensing inquiries. After finishing my
>analysis, I will have a partial order of when memory blocks were written in the
>file, which could hopefully reveal who was in the list before certain letters
>were sent.
>https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-form-read
>
>The first UNIX News list from a month later appears to be lightly reformatted
>from Ken’s list, trimmed to just those who subscribed. I’ve uploaded more
>legible scan of that issue I requested from Waterloo, which allowed me to
>correct my transcription.
>https://archive.org/details/unix_news_july-30-1975_waterloo/page/8/mode/2up
>https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/main/lists/1975-07-30_news.txt
>
>Hopefully you can make use of this. Enjoy!
>
>Thalia