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The UNIX License

• Bell Labs (AT&T) UNIX licenses cost $30,000 for commercial use, $150 for Universities.

• Berkeley UNIX was free and would boot directly, so there was no need for the Bell Labs tape.

• Berkeley UNIX contained Bell source code, so you had to have a UNIX license to get it.

• Armando Stettner of DEC’s tounge-in-cheek solution to the dilemma was to create UNIX licenses (license plates) and hand them out for free in 1982.

• The Stargate Museum includes a UNIX license plate from Armando.

The full story can be found at http://www.unix.org/license-plate.html

 

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[The Stargate Internet Museum] [Tour the Museum] [The UNIX License] [Did Al Gore Invent the Internet?] [The ARPANET, 1969-1982] [Early UNIX Development] [Berkeley UNIX, 1979-1984] [UUCP and E-mail] [Usenet, 1979] [Early MS Windows 1.0] [The UUCP Project, 1984] [CUBIX Computer] [Stargate Project] [UNIX PC, 1985] [.COM Created] [SPARCstation 1, 1992] [A Merger] [Epilogue]