How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 472.22

-1.3%

Nov 21 3:59 PM EST

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To: markanth who wrote (17013)	2/27/1999 1:57:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (3) of 74651

You wouldn't want to license the code that could be re-written because it would create multiple variants (ie UNIX), a splinter. Unix is an interesting case since its open source is a direct result of an antitrust settlement. Years before anyone thought of operating systems, AT&T's Bell System agreed to give up the intellectual property rights to its inventions. They could hold patents and copyrights, but had to open them to anyone who wanted to use them. As a result, RCA and others were able to make and sell a transistors months after the technology had been invented at Bell Labs and released to the public. And a few years later, students at Berkeley could grab the source code to Bell's Unix OS and C programming language and do with it what they wished. Bell didn't even keep any kind of licensing authority. Sure, it resulted in variations in both Unix and C, but was the result so bad? Both run on just about any powerful processor available and both managed to become significant standards. And even the variations aren't so severe. I'm not a Unixoid, but on the surface Linux looks exactly like the Ultrix or Digital Unix that I use when I telnet into my ISP. The utilities are the same. Many programs (including X-servers) are recompiled to work on both Unix variants. If Windows code were released in some way, it wouldn't have to be nearly as open as Bell's Unix was. It could be more like what happened after AT&T regained intellectual property rights in the divestiture: They then set up a licensing authority for "Unix" which attempted to set standards even though the genie was out of the bottle by then. (SCO now holds that authority after AT&T sold it.)

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