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0 pointsajross1y ago0 comments

Bell Labs being defunded by a deregulated/competetive AT&T was precisely what led to the attempted commercialization of Unix and the near death of what would eventually be called "open source", though. In history as it stands, we had GNU and Linux and all that we lost was a few years.

But it's easy to imagine a world where that didn't happen and BSD was just killed dead. So no OS X, no iOS, no Android, no ChromeOS, and the only vendor able to stand on its own is the one we all agree had the worst product.

Ironically the world where the Bell monopoly was left in place seems to me to be one where we're all stuck running Microsoft Windows on everything, no?

I mean, fine, there's nuance to everything but the idea that "well, open research isn't so important" seems frankly batshit to me. Monopolies fall on their own all the time (Microsoft's did too!). You can't get stuff into the public space that wasn't ever there to begin with.

0 pointsajross1y ago0 comments

Ironically the world where the Bell monopoly was left in place seems to me to be one where we're all stuck running Microsoft Windows on everything, no?

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4 comments · 2 top-level

throwaway1737381y ago· 1 in thread

You’re making the assumption that only corporations can fund or perform basic research. But the transistor was actually the culmination of decades of research by materials scientists and physicists in university and other labs into semiconductors before anyone realized there were applications.

ajrossOP1y ago

No, I'm making the observation that corporations do fund or perform basic research; and the straightforward inference that removing the incentive for them to do so is bad.

Is that wrong? Possibly. But if you're hanging your argument on the idea that the transistor would have been invented without Bell Labs (or BSD without AT&T's open research, which was my example), I think it's on you to provide the evidence.

pixl971y ago· 1 in thread

>Monopolies fall on their own all the time (Microsoft's did too!)

What in the heck are you talking about??? After Microsoft was convicted, even though they never received any actual punishment, the were very internally cautions about any behaviors that could be perceived as monopolistic. This is like a total misinterpretation of what actually occurred on your part.

And yes, monopolies do fall, after very long periods of time. Some monopoly sitting around 25 years may not seem like much, but that's half an average persons working life.

ajrossOP1y ago

You responded to a parenthetical. The point was about AT&T, not Microsoft. And yes, they effectively killed BSD, relenting only in the late 90's once it became clear that (post-Linux) there was little value left in Unix. In a different universe, they go to the mattresses with SysV against Windows NT and lose, and we have nothing.

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