Their mismanagement killed the business, causing Bell
Labs as we knew it, to eventually fade away.
I hope that’s somewhat an answer for me, if not correct & complete, it also explains
why the ‘combatants’
aren’t keen to talk about their experiences.
all my best
steve
Oh I know that struggle all too well, what potential are we on the cusp of vs. what do the
suits want/need. Given WECo's legacy in the audio realm, I find that Plan9 story
particularly disheartening, electrified (audio) signals and the complex manipulation and
supplementation thereof is what one would think is the chief concern of a telecom
behemoth.
I'd never heard the bit about the hardware business winding up with NCR, although I
guess I've never looked in that direction as hard as the USL path through Novell.
That gives me more to study in my nebulous 3B20 and kin research.
I'm glad I wasn't in the know at the time of all the SCO stuff (and was a kid
that didn't care) because I probably would've shoved all sorts of feet into my
mouth in the sorts of debates over software freedom that were going on at the time.
Looking back, that must've been such a frustrating time, I don't blame folks for
coming out of that with battle scars.
Well now I've got this morbid curiosity to see if I can FPGA a WE32000-ish video game
console...but that goes on the endless pile of "eventually"s.
Thanks for the background Steve!
- Matt G.