From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 9 10:47:30 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E6DE37B401 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 10:47:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sccrmhc01.attbi.com (sccrmhc01.attbi.com [204.127.202.61]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F9DE43E4A for ; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 10:47:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([12.242.158.67]) by sccrmhc01.attbi.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with ESMTP id <20021009174727.DJQF29655.sccrmhc01.attbi.com@localhost.localdomain>; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 17:47:27 +0000 Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g99HnuoS011742; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 10:49:56 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) id g99Hno65011737; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 10:49:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.localdomain: jojo set sender to swear@attbi.com using -f To: Terry Lambert Cc: Brett Glass , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Congrats to Brett Glass for new BSD history article References: <20021008145226.K30424-100000@pogo.caustic.org> <3DA36DF9.CD52524F@mindspring.com> From: swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 09 Oct 2002 10:49:50 -0700 In-Reply-To: <3DA36DF9.CD52524F@mindspring.com> Message-ID: Lines: 38 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Terry Lambert writes: > UNIX was free, too. The consent decree from the Greene decision > on the AT&T antitrust case forbit AT&T from making money from > selling software. Now THAT's something I can believe (if I accept "free" as meaning only no-cost licensing, which I'm happy to do). Except I think you got a detail wrong. Either (or both) the 1956 concent decree or an agreement with FCC in 1979-80 forbade BellLabs/WE from selling stuff outside AT&T. The Greene decision got them off that hook, as you later indicated. > For a long time, UCB did not "upgrade" its source license, because > of the additional restrictions the new license tried to place on > the code. They were happy with the old license. Any guess when they DID upgrade their license and the gist of the new terms? Please confirm (to make this perfectly clear) what you seem to be implying, that both schools and companies (and not just DoD contractors) used, without paying any licensing fees, the then-current versions of the "BSD OS" the entire time they were available (1978-now?). So when Dennis Ritchie said "The contractors got the UNIX licenses from Bell Labs, but they got the BSD software from Berkeley.", he was referring to a no-cost license. And when history writers refer to "buying BSD", they're referring only to the cost of tapes, etc. One exception might have been AT&T itself, which (as I understand things) might have paid very high prices for the products of WE & Bell Labs, as allowed by the 1956 decree, to fund those companies. But it's OK to consider them one big company in this discussion. A nice, short history of AT&T, WE, and Bell Labs is at http://www.bell-labs.com/history/lucent.html To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message