[TUHS] Re: Unix single-machine licensing (was Re: Re: ACM Software System Award to Andrew S. Tanenbaum for MINIX)

[segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org>]

On Wednesday, June 19th, 2024 at 12:10 PM, segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:

> On Wednesday, June 19th, 2024 at 9:00 AM, Al Kossow aek@bitsavers.org wrote:
> 
> > On 6/19/24 8:47 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
> > 
> > > That's how I remember Otis Wilson explaining it to us as commercial licensees at a licensing meeting in the early 1980s.
> > > We had finally completed the PWB 3.0 license to replace the V7 commercial license (AT&T would rename this System III - but we knew it as PWB
> > > 3.) during the negociations Summit had already moved on to the next version - PWB 4.0. IMO: Otis was not ready to start that process again.
> > 
> > Is the really early history of Unix licensing documented anywhere?
> > The work on reviving a Plexus P20 prompted me to put up the history of Onyx and Plexus at
> > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/plexus/history and a long time ago someone who worked at Fortune
> > told me we can all thank Onyx in 1980 for working out the single machine licensing with
> > AT&T
> 
> 
> I've got a stack of license specimens as well as a bit of correspondence between
> MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Raytheon, and Western Electric discussing UNIX licenses
> for single CPUs. The correspondence (circa 1980) concerns V7 licenses for a
> PDP-11/44 (MIT LL) and PDP-11/45 (Raytheon). The license specimens are in two
> groups, one set that has blanks and/or generic language describing
> "Licensed Software" and a second set specifically issued for UNIX System III.
> 
> The licenses have document codes:
> 
> - Software-Corp.-020173-020182-2 - Software Agreement between AT&T and <Blank>
> 
> - Software-Customer CPU-052776-090180-2 - Customer CPU Agreement between <Blank> and <Blank>
> 
> - Supp. Ag.-Time Sharing-020178-010180-2 - Supplemental Agreement (Time Sharing) between Western Electric Company, Incorporated and <Blank>
> 
> - Supp. Ag.-Customer CPU-020178-010180-2 - Supplemental Agreement (Customer CPU) between Western Electric Company, Incorporated and <Blank>
> 
> - Supp. Ag.-Cust. Spec.-020181-2 - Supplemental Agreement (Customer Software, Specified Number of Users) between Western Electric Company, Incorporated and <Blank>
> 
> - Cont. CPU-060181-1 - Contractor CPU Agreement between <Blank> and <Blank>
> 
> - Sys. III-Corp.-110181-040182-2 - Software Agreement between AT&T and <Blank> for UNIX System III
> 
> - Sys. III-Cust.-010182-041582-2 - Supplemental Agreement (Customer Provisions) between AT&T and <Blank> for UNIX System III
> 
> 
> Would scans of these documents help? The licenses at least should be fine as they're specimen copies with no PII. Regarding the correspondence, there is one letter on DARPA letterhead (from MIT LL to WECo), two on WECo letterhead (one back to MIT LL, the other to Raytheon) and then one on AT&T letterhead responding generically to an uinquiry regarding UNIX System III licensing. Does anyone foresee issues with scanning the correspondence, or is that the sort of thing that might get me shipped off to some black site?
> 
> - Matt G.

And now these are up here: https://archive.org/details/att_unix_licenses_1982

Included is misc.pdf, which is the couple letters as well as a packing slip from Bell Laboratories for a shipment of V7.  Also a revision to my last listing of their document codes, the "-2" on the end is a page number...whoops...the document names in the archive posting reflect the document codes sans this oversight.  I labeled the posting 1982 as that's the date on the latest of the license specimens, the letters were in the same batch of documents but not adjacent.

- Matt G.