[Year 12 Its] Re: [Yr11 Information Technology] Programming Awards2006: PD Registrations

[Con Zymaris]

On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 10:39:21AM +1000, Damien A-B wrote:
> Wasn't Unix originally free to universities and then exobitant prices to
> businesses?

It was. 

They got hooked.

> According to The Cranberry Book, Unix version 6 (circa 1976) was free for
> Universities and version 7 cost $100 (government labs and commercial
> entities had to pay $21,000). 


And yes they had to pay through the nose for that lack of freedom later 
on. AT&T's ploy was one of the core reasons why the GNU's Not Unix project 
was started, the end-game of which is Linux and Free software.


> Not that I'm a big fan or MS_World_Domination, but essentially it's the same
> marketing ploy

It is and it is done because it works so well. 

It costs Microsoft nothing to give out 'free crack', yet they rake the
revenues in later on, when your students are hooked into the Microsoft
mindset.

Cheers,

Con Zymaris

- CEO, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.
- Director, Open Source Industry Australia, Limited.
- Convenor, Open Source Victoria (A Government-funded industry cluster.)

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
Web: http://www.cyber.com.au/  Phone: 03 9621 2377   Fax: 03 9621 2477