18 Feb
2020
18 Feb
'20
9:36 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 08:28:50AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Yeah, Clem sort of has a blind spot on licensing. It's weird because I
agree with him on almost everything, it's sort of spooky how much we
agree.
My guess is that Clem was always at a University or a job where the fees
were mouse nuts and so it appeared to him that things just worked. If
you were a grad student like me, who wanted roff on a PC, it was very
different. And I suspect Clem has always been seen as one of the
chosen few who get logins on the machines with source. I was a nobody
and had to fight hard to get a login, I got it, but not until I was a
junior.
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.