18 Feb
2020
18 Feb
'20
9:28 p.m.
Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
ditroff was always >>open source<< and any
licensee could get it and see
it. The problem you are suggesting is that it was not >>free<< i.e. FOSS.
I don't like your use of "open source"; it is way out of skew with
how it's used today.
AT&T licensed it with a small set of fees. IIRC
$1K for the first CPU, an
$50 for each and redistribution license was $10K and $5/system.
That was very painful for universities and/or small businesses. Sure
Sun and Masscomp could afford that. Your average computing center /
computer science department / startup would have to think twice or thrice.
Per CPU licensing was particularly painful if you had a bunch
of workstations.
Arnold