10 Mar
2024
10 Mar
'24
4:05 p.m.
On 10 Mar 2024, at 06:52, Clem Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
That said, a different license for UNIX-based IP could be granted by the Regents of the
University of CA and managed by its 'Industrial Laison's Office" at UCB
(the 'IOL' - the same folks that brought licenses for tools like SPICE, SPLICE,
MOTIS, et al). This license gave the holder the right to examine and use the UCB's
derivative works on anything as long as you acknowledged that you got that from UCB and
held the Regents blameless [we often called this the 'dead-fish license' -- you
could make a chip, make a computer, or even wrap dead-fish in it. But you had to say you
started with something from the Regents, but they were not to be blamed for what you did
with it].
<snip>
Before I go on, in those times, the standard way we operated was that you needed to have
a copy of someone else's signature page to share things. In what would later become
USENIX (truth here - I'm an ex-president of the same), you could only get invited and
come to a conference if you were licensed from AT&T. That was not a big deal. We all
knew each other. FWIW: at different times in my career, I have had a hanging file in a
cabinet with a copy of the number of these pages from different folks, with whom I would
share mag tapes (remember this is pre-Internet, and many of the folks using UNIX were not
part of the ARPAnet).
However, the song has other verses that make this a little confusing.
<snip>
So the question is, how did a DoD contractor, be it BBN, Ford Aerospace, SRI, etc.,
originally get access to UNIX IP? Universities and traditional research teams could get a
research license. Commercial firms like DEC needed a commercial licensee. Folks with DoD
contracts were in a hazy area. The original v5 commercial licensee was written for
Rand, a DoD contractor. However, as discussed here in the IH mailing list and elsewhere,
some places like BBN had access to the core UNIX IP as part of their DoD contracts. I
believe Ford Aerospace was working with AT&T together as part of another US Gov
project - which is how UNIX got there originally (Ford Aero could use it for that project,
but not the folks at Ford Motors, for instance].
In the last while I’ve read about DARPA’s IPTO (Information Processing Technology Office)
1962-1986
and how they (generously) funded a very diverse range of projects for extended
durations.
Alan Kay comments that $1M was small beer to DARPA, who were investing billions in R&D
every year.
It was a boom time for US computing research - funders with vision, deep pockets and
patience :)
I can’t find my source now, nor any list of IPTO’s contracts given to UCB ( or given to
anyone ).
UCB - Berkeley - got many contracts, time-sharing / SDS-940, Ingres, TCP/IP in the Unix
kernel and RISC processing.
There was an IPTO director - Bob Taylor or Robert Kahn - that wanted a common development
platform with IP plus development tools,
who gave contracts to UCB’s CSRG to do the work.
This story implies DARPA helped arrange Unix licences with the many defence contractors,
albeit they only need binaries for BSD.
If the Internet Society’s ‘brief history’ is to be believed, Defence declared Unix a
’standard’ (for which work?) in 1980.
===================
DARPA’s short bio of IPTO. Doesn’t mention name change in 1986 to Information Processing
Technology Office (not ’Techniques’)
Information Processing Techniques Office
<https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/ipto>
DARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) was born in 1962 and for nearly 50
years was responsible for DARPA’s information technology programs.
===================
850K PDF, selected IPTO pages from DARPA report, includes charts of projects and total
budget - barely legible
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KnT1qPi37O4EKs8mLZ1fDHaIA4GiJvIm/view?usp=sharing>
DARPA technical accomplishments volume 3
an historical review of selected darpa projects
1991
<https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA241680.pdf>
===================
<https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/>
One of the more interesting challenges was the transition of the ARPANET host protocol
from NCP to TCP/IP as of January 1, 1983.
This was a “flag-day” style transition, requiring all hosts to convert simultaneously or
be left having to communicate via rather ad-hoc mechanisms.
This transition was carefully planned within the community over several years before it
actually took place and went surprisingly smoothly (but resulted in a distribution of
buttons saying “I survived the TCP/IP transition”).
TCP/IP was adopted as a defense standard three years earlier in 1980.
This enabled defense to begin sharing in the DARPA Internet technology base and led
directly to the eventual partitioning of the military and non- military communities.
By 1983, ARPANET was being used by a significant number of defense R&D and operational
organizations. The transition of ARPANET from NCP to TCP/IP permitted it to be split into
a MILNET supporting operational requirements and an ARPANET supporting research needs.
===================
In this 1988 oral history interview with Bob Khan, he talks about giving contracts to Bill
Joy / USB’s CSRC to port Unix to the VAX 11/780 and BBN’s TCP/IP into BSD.
Although a DEC package deal for VAX 11/750’s for Universities was mentioned (5 for $180k),
there’s no mention of licensing (easy for Research, not for Defence contractors)
page 42
<https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2016/10/102717241-05-01-acc.pdf>
===================
Although ARPA has no definitive timeline or list of accomplishments for the IPTO, it
references others work.
<https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/mouse>
What Will Be (HarperCollins, 1997), author Michael Dertouzos credits DARPA with
“… between a third and a half of all the major innovations in computer science and
technology.”
===================
PDF of 2003 article from IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
J.C.R. Licklider’s Vision for the IPTO
<https://worrydream.com/refs/Kita_2003_-_J.C.R._Licklider%27s_Vision_for_the_IPTO.pdf>
Chigusa Ishikawa Kita, Kyoto University
The Information Processing Techniques Office of the Advanced Research Projects Agency was
founded in 1962
as a step toward realizing a flexible military command and control system.
In setting the IPTO’s research agenda for funding, its first director, J.C.R. Licklider,
emphasized the development of time-sharing systems.
This article looks at how Licklider’s early vision of “a network of thinking centers”
helped set the stage for the IPTO’s most famous project: the Arpanet.
===================
A partial list of DARPA Information processing projects. Omits the VLSI & RISC work.
Norberg is a co-author of the 1996 book, "Transforming Computer Technology.
Information Processing for the Pentagon, 1962-1986”
DARPA's IPTO had Formidable Reputation
Arthur L. Norberg, May 1997
<https://archive.cra.org/CRN/html/9705/research/aln.10_1_t.shtml>
===================
DARPA in the 1980s – Transformative Technology Development and Transition [ PDF, pg 15 ]
<https://www.darpa.mil/attachments/DARAPA60_publication-no-ads.pdf>
Parallel to DARPA’s transformational military programs in the 1970s and 1980s
were programs revolutionizing information technology, building on Licklider’s vision of
“man-computer symbiosis.”
DARPA’s research was foundational to computer science.
ARPANET was one element of a much broader, increasingly coherent program based on the
technological future that Licklider imagined.
He and his IPTO colleagues conceived a multi-pronged development of the technologies
underlying the transformation of information processing
from clunky, room- filling, inaccessible mainframe machines
to a ubiquitous network of interactive and personal computing capabilities.
This transformation continues today in DARPA’s pursuit of artificial intelligence,
cognitive (brain-like) computing, and robotics.
===================
DARPA and the Internet Revolution
By Mitch Waldrop
[ also author of ’The Dream Machine’ on Licklider’s career ]
<https://www.darpa.mil/attachments/(2O15)%20Global%20Nav%20-%20About%20Us%20-%20History%20-%20Resources%20-%2050th%20-%20Internet%20(Approved).pdf>
===================
Another partial list
<https://image.slideserve.com/635614/darpa-ipto-and-the-computing-revolution-n.jpg>
from:
<https://www.slideserve.com/channer/a-darpa-information-processing-technology-renaissance-developing-cognitive-systems>
DARPA/IPTO and the Computing Revolution
DARPA is credited with “between a third and a half of all the major innovations in
computer science and technology” – Michael Dertouzos, What Will Be (1997)
The information technology revolution of the second half of the 20th century was largely
driven by DARPA/IPTO (1962-1986)
* Time-sharing
* Interactive computing, personal computing
* ARPANET
* ILLIAC IV
* The Internet
J.C.R. Licklider (first IPTO Director) had the goal of human-computer symbiosis We now
have the opportunity to go back to the future (forward to the past?)
===================
--
Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin