Sort of like when DEC finally recognized that people were buying their hardware to run UNIX.   Still remember Armando getting up and saying something to the effect that DEC hardware and UNIX had been synonymous for years and that DEC finally noticed and the held up the first DEC UNIX license (plate). 
On May 16, 2025, at 17:45, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:


Marc, you are right, but the OpenLook/Motif stuff was >>much<< later.   Matt asked about the SVID thing about 5-6 years before that.

The problem AT&T had was >>before<< Judge Green, they could not be in the computer biz, so they "abandoned the sources on your doorstep, with no warranty of any kind."  It was simply thatAT&T was not allowed to be in the computer business by law.  Post Judge Green boy did AT&T's management >>want<< to be in the computer biz, and they tried to use tactics that had often worked for the largest computer firm to date.  In fact, the firm that Charlie Brown [the AT&T CEO] was quoted as saying, he wanted to compete with and emulate IBM.  If I recall correctly, he said something about matching them move for move.   UNIX had been AT&T's baby, and AT&T wanted it back, but by then, the child had grown up and did not want or need its parent anymore.  A lot of the failed actions post Judge Green are part of AT&T searching for a grip in a business its management team did not understand, nor was prepared to be a part of.

The assumption was that before the breakup, they were the world's largest company, and even after, the new AT&T was still larger in assets than IBM, so they could compete.  History proved otherwise. If they had used different tactics, with the assets AT&T had in its quiver, they might have been able to be a real force.  But I think pride made them think that the 3B20 was going to be able to compete with a Mainframe (or even a Vax) — mind you, their own people wanted Vaxen or later Suns.  AT&T Management seem to think that UNIX was the key, but AT&T had to be in charge of it.  The funny thing, is if AT&T management had taken a zen approach and bolstered what everyone else was doing instead of trying to drive everyone else away [Microsoft's famous "embrace and extend model"], and not tried compete in the processor wars, but instead take on second source licenses and start using their boundary; I something wonder if it might have had a very different out come.  They still would have needed to see the PC revolution coming, which I'm not sure management types used to 40-50% gross margin will ever under as 12-15% margin PC market (volume is everything) market. 
 
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On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 3:01 PM Marc Rochkind <mrochkind@gmail.com> wrote:
I was only slightly connected with the development of the POSIX standard, and as has been mentioned here, AT&T was a full participant.

The real conflicts were in a related area and at the time were termed The GUI Wars. Basically, it was AT&T and Sun pushing OpenLook and everyone else pushing Motif.  I seem to recall that the Motif folks (Open Software Foundation) more or less forced IEEE to just accept Motif as a standard.

I was on a different committee that was trying to standardize a universal GUI interface that could work on any GUI, including Mac, Windows, Motif, and OpenLook. My product, XVT, was the base document. We never got past the draft stage.

Marc