Proto open source

Ars Technica has a short, but nice article on the US Government’s role in AT&T’s decision to release Unix to a wider audience.

Bell Labs’ Unix operating system is often credited as being the catalyst that kick-started large-scale, open source software collaboration. They released Unix with no tech support, so the users formed their own community and quickly began sharing ideas. This, in time, inspired other communities, including the recently developed open source hardware community.

Why did Bell Labs release Unix without tech support? The larger company, AT&T, was constantly under the threat of being busted under anti-trust laws. In the 50’s, the government asked AT&T to narrow their business focus. So when Unix came along, AT&T wanted to make it clear that they weren’t in the software business. That’s why they released under the terms that they did. It was free-as-in-beer, not free-as-in-speech, but it was close enough to let the community grow.

Did AT&T’s refusal to provide technical support hurt Unix? Quite the opposite, argues Salus. Instead, the policy had an “immediate effect: it forced the users to share with one another. They shared ideas, information, programs, bug fixes, and hardware fixes.”

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