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It thought UNIX originally belonged to AT&T and they sold licenses. See the UNIX history.
by lispm 10y ago
It thought UNIX originally belonged to AT&T and they sold licenses. See the UNIX history.
- pjmlp 10y agoThey were prevented to sell them in the beginning, which was when some of the AT&T guys brought the code into universities like Berkeley and Stanford. EDIT: Well, they actually did sold licenses, but I guess $99 even in 70's was quite cheap vs what the alternatives were asking for http://engineering2.berkeley.edu/labnotes/history_unix.html http://engineering2.berkeley.edu/labnotes/history_unix.html "This led to requests for the system, but under a 1956 consent decree in settlement of an antitrust case, the Bell System (the parent organization of Bell Labs) was forbidden from entering any business other than "common carrier communications services", and was required to license any patents it had upon request.[6] Unix could not, therefore, be turned into a product. Bell Labs instead shipped the system for the cost of media and shipping." -- Wikipedia
- lispm 10y agocheap, but not 'free'. See also the later fate of UNIX (-> Novell, ...).