cottrell@nbs-vms.ARPA (01/16/85)
/* i both agree & disagree with lauren. while at&t did us all a big favor by inventing unix (not to mention the transistor), it was not the same at&t. unix was developed outside the normal corporate channels for more than a decade before at&t was diversified and allowed to compete in the software market. now unix is a corporate product, with all the associated nastys. remember they're still THE PHONE COMPANY! america's favorite pastime is ripping off TPC. remember when everyone connected extra jacks up in their house and disconnected the bells? howabout hooking touch tone phones up to lines that just happenned to go thru touch tone exchanges? why pay more? morality is not absolute, but relative. what about the $27 special unix issue? at&t isn't doing us all favors anymore. they've got their corporate claws wrapped around us now that we're dependent on their product. what about the favors we did them? there is no other non-vendor operating system around wth such wide acceptance. the gurus fought managers and administrators who would rather buy vms, cp/m, msdos, or some other opsys. at&t got the bucks. this is not to condone wholesale piracy. at&t deserves to make some bucks off rich corporations, but not private hackers. all some of us wanted to do was put in a feature we saw in berklix. i understand that not releasing source was an attempt to avoid proliferation of non-standard unices. i have mixed feelings about that. the standardization of unix is useful, but what about the feature i wanted to put in. at&t has been accused of being berkeley-phobes? why? i disagree with what kernighan (or was it ritchie?) said in the oct bstj. no options for cat? no history for the shell? no multicolumn output for ls? no more? come on. if they eschew such useful features, i'll just have to put them in myself. to the issue of piracy in general: ever tape an album? what's it say on the back? unautorized duplication prohibited. why buy an album for $x.98 when two of my friends will fit on a $1.99 tdk-sa c90 cassette? have the record companies gone broke? no. and what about concert tapes. most theaters prohibit taping concerts because of so-called piracy, probably because of a standard clause in the record companies or agents contracts. but i want a tape of the concert i went to. if the record companies would record it i would buy it. so let me tape it. the people who attempt to sell it for lotsa bucks will become too visible and be hassled by lawyers, but what's wrong with private use. ever wonder what is on the majority of tapes in the entire world? grateful dead concerts. i have close to 200, and there are millions who have more. when business cant handle the demand, people will fill it. i feel the same way about software. people that write it deserve to be paid for it, but dont squeeze the customers dry. if the price gets too high, morals get correspondingly lower. i have never been particularly impressed with businesses morals. why do we have the consumer product commision, better business bureau, federal drug administration, aclu, osha, epa, federal trade commission, etc? the list goes on and on. the gist of it is that these organizations exists to protect the consumer from the corporations. from a business/law viewpoint, unix is not unique. from a technical viewpoint it is. at&t could publish the sources, collect any interesting user contributed software, sell the result, make a killing, and probably eliminate many standard os's out of lack of interest. my interest is in the best software environment possible. i like to read code just to know how it works. we all like freebies. has anyone considered the fact that the arpanet is widely used for mail (ripping the post office off) and technical papers (ripping off the publishing companies)? fortunately, i'm in a position where access (to sources) means that i wont have to test my morality. my uncle (sam) has graciously procured V6, sys V, and 4.2BSD. just the same, i plan to port anything i find useful from one system to another (it's already been paid for, right?). i dont know what i'd do if i was one of those poor suckers who lived in binary land. "we dont care. we dont have to. we're the phone company" "first one's free, kid" the opinions expressed are my own. nbs neither approves nor disapproves of any company or product. */
Ron Natalie <ron@BRL-TGR.ARPA> (01/16/85)
The fact that this author encloses all his messages in comment characters and uses a terminal without a shift key should tell me something... > this is not to condone wholesale piracy. at&t deserves to make some > bucks off rich corporations, but not private hackers. Why do you think it's unfair for AT&T to avoid making a distinction between Joe-Private-Enterprise and Joe-Private-Computer-Geek? The educational license serves AT&T one and only one purpose, and it's the same ploy that IBM used in the past. To get people at Universities trained in it so that when they graduate they'll be in the market to by UNICES. Joe-Private-Computer-Geek provides no benefit to AT&T. AT&T is not, and should not be a social assistance program to hackers. > most theaters prohibit taping concerts > because of so-called piracy, probably because of a standard clause > in the record companies or agents contracts. but i want a tape of the > concert i went to. if the record companies would record it i would > buy it. so let me tape it. the people who attempt to sell it for > lotsa bucks will become too visible and be hassled by lawyers, but > what's wrong with private use. It's not to make the record companies rich, it's to keep the composers, etc..from getting ripped off. > at&t could publish the sources, collect any > interesting user contributed software, sell the result, make a killing, > and probably eliminate many standard os's out of lack of interest. IBM does this now, but they still charge you for the sources. As a matter of fact, IBM's community (as well as the UNIX community) has to continually battle to keep the sources available at any price. > has anyone considered the fact that the arpanet is widely used for > mail (ripping the post office off) and technical papers (ripping off > the publishing companies)? It never ceases to amaze me that people keep making analogies that have no relevance to the origninal topic. Having the net in competition with other carriers (USPS) or companies (publishing companies) is different than stealing someone else product and not paying for it. A better analogy would be mailing a letter without using a valid stamp or xeroxing technical papers out of magazines rather than subscribing to them. > fortunately, i'm in a position where access (to sources) means > that i wont have to test my morality. my uncle (sam) has graciously > procured V6, sys V, and 4.2BSD. just the same, i plan to port > anything i find useful from one system to another (it's already > been paid for, right?). i dont know what i'd do if i was one of those > poor suckers who lived in binary land. Wrong. If you are using an OEM sublicense, you are still violating the law. You are only allowed to run the AT&T code that the OEM supplied you. If you have bought a real System V binary license, you can then cross compile code to your machine, but you may not move the source to the machine with the binary license. To do that you need either a source license or an "Additional CPU" endorsement on a source license. BRL, for instance, keeps the AT&T source only on VGR, and all our other machines have binary licenses and recieve binary distibutions. -Ron
garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) (01/22/85)
> /* > > this is not to condone wholesale piracy. .. but you do condone retail piracy: > > to the issue of piracy in general: ever tape an album? what's it > say on the back? unautorized duplication prohibited. why buy > an album for $x.98 when two of my friends will fit on a $1.99 > tdk-sa c90 cassette? have the record companies gone broke? no. No, but I can't afford to buy all the records I would like to have because of theft by people like you. The record companies have not gone broke because they have to sell records for $9.98 instead of 4.98. (For that matter, I strongly suspect that a lot of record companies have gone broke, and I further suspect that piracy contributed to the demise of some of them. > i feel the same way about software. people that write it deserve > to be paid for it, but dont squeeze the customers dry. if the price > gets too high, morals get correspondingly lower. i have never been > particularly impressed with businesses morals. Should I be impressed with your morals? > why do we have the > consumer product commision, better business bureau, federal drug > administration, aclu, osha, epa, federal trade commission, etc? Because people like you run some businesses.
john@x.UUCP (John Woods) (01/29/85)
[ Carelessly setting good sense and taste aside, he joins the fray: ] As a hacker who wouldn't be happy with any particular distributed UNIX(tm) binary, I am personally miffed that AT&T has no provision for me. Tough. However, given the volume (what is the volume of a bit?) of ``discussion'' [sic] on this topic, it seems that there are at least 100 or so people who are in a similar position. How about: each person chips in $500 or so to add up to the purchase of a single source license and individual binary licenses. The assembly of hackers then goes frenzied on the source machine in a weekend orgy of creeping featurism, and everyone comes away with what they want (possibly to return to the trough later). I do not propose this seriously. I merely wish to point out that there may be alternatives to the choice of $40K or "5 fingers". Just because a "business" license is bought need not imply (I think) that there is a profit-making business owning it. Any obvious holes in this? Or am I making too much sense? -------- Standard Disclaimer: no sane human being or company believes the above nonsense. Especially me or mine. -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA Sorry, I don't feel deep right now.
jrb@wdl1.UUCP (01/30/85)
If the record companies were selling records for $4.98 it would be cheaper to buy the record than to buy a tape and copy. It's because of the $9.98 (and up) prices that so much taping goes on. The stuff becomes self-defeating. If you make the cost of the object cheaper than the cost of ripping it off, there will be no ripping off. John R Blaker UUCP: ...!fortune!wdl1!jrb ARPA: jrb@FORD-WDL1 and blaker@FORD-WDL2
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (01/30/85)
> > If the record companies were selling records for $4.98 it would be cheaper > to buy the record than to buy a tape and copy. It's because of the $9.98 > (and up) prices that so much taping goes on. The stuff becomes self-defeating. > > If you make the cost of the object cheaper than the cost of ripping it off, > there will be no ripping off. > And if you stop paying the artists that record the material, it will be as cheap to record the record as it is for you to copy it. -- scc!steiny Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382 109 Torrey Pine Terr. Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 ihnp4!pesnta -\ fortune!idsvax -> scc!steiny ucbvax!twg -/