[TUHS] Western Electric "Research Unix" License Contacts

reed at reedmedia.net reed at reedmedia.net
Sun Nov 24 01:02:31 AEST 2019


Any more details about this?

The Dec. 1973 agreement with Univ. of California is "solely for 
academic and educational purposes" and included "source program code". 
(Their initial installs were 4th edition.)

The slightly revised Dec. 1974 agreement with Katholieke Universiteit
is also solely for academic and educational purposes" with nominal 
service charge of $150. (This was signed in February 1975 a little 
before the 6th edition came out.)

I read multiple times that the first "source" licensee may have been the 
Univ. of Illinois. But I also read they were the first "source" licensee 
for the "5th" edition so not any Unix source license in general. 

Was Univ. of Illinois the first source licensee regardless of the 
edition (so prior to Dec. 1973 / Jan. 1974)?  Any docs/citations on 
this?

https://web.archive.org/web/20160322042314/http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~gillies/mail/dbgillies_ken_thompson.txt
 suggests the agreement with Univ. of Illinois happened a few months 
before July 1975, so maybe it couldn't have been the first (since there 
are copies of agreements prior years with other schools) even though 
that says the first.

The (Univ. of Illinois) Network UNIX RFC 681 is dated March 18, 1975 and 
NIC 32157 dated May 14, 1975. It references Fifth Edition and has:

   BELL'S POLICY IN THE PAST HAS BEEN TO LISCENSE THE SYSTEM TO 
   UNIVERSITIES FOR A NOMINAL FEE, $150.00, AND UNFORTUNATELY FOR A COST 
   OF $20,000.00 TO "NONUNIVERSITY" INSTITUTIONS.

Since the NIC has later date that the RFC maybe this was updated later 
than the RFC date so the commercial cost is really about the 6th 
edition?

Does anyone have a copy of the software agreement for a non-university, 
or without the "solely for academic" clause, or for $20,000 from early 
1975 (or for 5th edition)?

This 1983 Byte magazine article 
https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1983-10/1983_10_BYTE_08-10_UNIX#page/n133/mode/2up 
says the 6th edition was first Unix to be sold to commercial firms. A 
company license was $20,000 and a educational license was $200.

Anyone have a copy of any 6th edition license agreement?
(The author of 
https://wiki.tuhs.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications:theses:gmp_thesis.pdf 
says has a copy signed May 12, 1977 but I couldn't get in contact with 
yet.)

I understand the agreement for 7th Edition included a clause saying a 
course curriculum couldn't discuss or describe the code. (John 
Lions clause).

Does anyone have a 7th edition license? (Educational or otherwise?) 
(Again the author of above thesis says has copy of a 7th edition 
education license signed Feb. 20, 1981.)

Does anyone have Exhibit F -- the "32V Software Agreement" dated April 
1, 1979 -- for the AT&T/USL vs. BSDI/Univ. of California Jun 1992 
complaint (or Exhibit B to the DeFazio Affidavit)? (See 
920724.complaint.txt and more details in 930107.amicus.txt and 
930108.oppose.txt.)  Or maybe the 1981 relicense?

What does it mean about the often mentioned first commercial 
version from AT&T wasn't until System III (Unix Release 3.0) in 1982?
This is confusing since documented references to commercial versions in 
early 1975.  Is this about AT&T proper instead of Bell Labs? Or maybe 
about official commercial support?

(RFC 681 which mentions the $20,000 non-university license fee also 
mentions RAND, Lincoln Laboratories, and Inco had Network UNIX source 
code, but unsure if that means that had the commercial license too. 
There are other commercial licenses long prior to System III, but maybe 
it is about professional support.)


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