[TUHS] System Economics (was is Linux "officially branded UNIX")

[William Pechter]

Chet Ramey wrote:
> On 3/15/17 4:27 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 03:45:24PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
>>> SVR4 (aka UnixWare) was available for source  - the problem is many people
>>> did like the price to see it.   It was $100K.  But the source was available
>>> it was open and many, many of people with PC and had access to it, wrote
>>> drivers for it etc.  
>> That's a pretty peculiar definition of open.  Which is fine, I guess,
>> but you need to realize that that's open much like a high end country
>> club is open.  It's open to the rich people, to the connected people,
>> everyone else is left out in the cold.
> This is the same access vs. affordability argument we're seeing played out
> in other segments of US society.
>
> I have access to a Porsche, as do thousands of others (some of whom choose
> not to buy one), but I can't afford one.
>
I have copies of the old 8086/8088 PC Xenix.  I don't know if SCO or
Microsoft even sold
the sources.  My old boss ran very early Microsoft SCO on a PDP11. 
Don't know if he had
sources.

Even working as a sysadmin for an AT&T oem of System V wouldn't get me
access to the source
through normal corporate means.  Perhaps I could've bribed an engineer
with a Pizza to let me get
to his machine without a screen lock... but he'd have been risking his job.

Bill

-- 
Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/