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

[Jonathan Gray]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2024 at 12:44:53PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 19, 2024 at 12:00 PM Al Kossow <aek at 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?
> >
> Not to my knowledge -- I probably know much/most of it as I lived it as
> part of a couple of the negotiation teams.
> 
> 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
> >
> Hmm, I'm not sure —but I don't think it is wholly clear—although Onyx was
> early and certainly would have been a part.  They were not the only firm
> that wanted redistribution rights.
> 
> Numerous vendors asked for the V7 redistribution license, with HP (Fred
> Clegg), Microsoft (Bob Greenberg/Bill Gates), and Tektronix (me) being
> three, I am aware. It is quite possible Onyx signed the original V7 license
> first, but I know there was great unhappiness with the terms that AT&T
> initially set up. When the folks from AT&T Patents and Licensing (Al Arms
> at that point) talked to us individually, it was sort of "this is what we
> are offering"  - mind you, this all started >>pre-Judge Green<< and the
> concept of negotiation was somewhat one-sided as AT&T was not allowed in
> the computer business.
> 
> There was also a bit of gnashing of teeth as PWB 2.0 was not on the price
> list.  At the time, Al's position was they could license the research, but
> since AT&T was not in the commercial computer business, anything done for
> the operation companies *(i.e.*, USG output) was not allowed to be
> discussed.
> 
> The desire to redistribute UNIX (particularly on microprocessors) came up
> at one of the earlier Asilomar Microprocessor workshops (which just held
> its 50th in April, BTW).    Prof Dennis Allison of Stanford was consulting
> for most of us at the time and recognized we had a common problem.  He set
> up a meeting for the approx 10 firms, introduced us, and left us alone.
> Thus began the meetings at Ricky's Hyatt (of which I was a part).  This all
> *eventually* begat the replacement license for what would be PWB 3.0.
> 
> I've mentioned those meetings a few times in this forum. As I said, it was
> the only time I was ever in a small meeting with Gates. When we were
> discussing the price for binary copies, starting at $5K and getting down to
> $1K seemed reasonable for a $25K-$125K computer, which was most of our
> price points.   Microsoft wanted to pay $25/copy.   He said to the rest of
> us, "You guys don't get it. *The only thing that matters is volume*."

The license changes were later announced at the first /usr/group meeting?

"Dennis Allison of Stanford, California is organizing a commercial UNIX
users group. The group is called /usr/group.
...
A meeting of the group was held on 17 October 1980 in Palo Alto."
;login:, vol 5, no 8, october 1980, p 9
https://archive.org/details/login_october-1980/page/9/mode/2up

A longer writeup in InfoWorld details Larry Isley's presentation of
volume based sub-licensing and mentions Onyx.

UNIX Users Unite, by Mokurai Cherlin
InfoWorld, vol 2, no 22, december 1980, pp 24-25
https://books.google.com/books?id=mD4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT23