News article on AT&T

[jeff at AIDS-UNIX.ARPA]

From:  Jeff Dean <jeff at AIDS-UNIX.ARPA>


Well, you've got to realize that, for a long time, AT&T equated
the idea of selling Unix with giving it away.  Marketing didn't
want to have anything to do with providing Unix to the outside
world.  And Scanlon's claim that this university "give away" was
good marketing is rubbish!  Marketing had nothing to do with it
(at least, not in the early days).

Next thing you know, AT&T will be claiming their marketing staff
asked the Labs create Unix because of the market potential for a
good portable operating system.  (You don't think that their
marketing people could be serious about selling an operating that
was developed by a couple of guys with beards in an attic?)