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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!wupost!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!alberta!canada!lyndon From: lyndon@ampr.ab.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: AT&T vs. BSDI - effectiveness of some protests Message-ID: <114@ampr.ab.ca> Date: 9 Aug 92 03:14:37 GMT References: <1992Jul21.131433.16450@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg> <l6vt9sINN93u@neuro.usc.edu> <1992Aug8.071846@eklektix.com> Organization: University of Northern B.C. Lines: 43 rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) writes: > Even worse, can a university's faculty/administration risk, in good con- > science, exposing students to source code from Plan 9? Better yet, should a university deal with a company that is so blatently opposed to the spirit of academic freedom? Much of SVR4 exists as a direct result of university research programs. But, now that they have benefitted from the results of that research they are trying to legislate that we can no longer share the results of our research, at least not without paying homage to the all mighty Death Star? I think the university community is *obligated* to not do business with such an entity. > Part of the matter of how to influence USL is finding where to put the > lever. USL is pretty big and rich compared to the group here. AT&T is > enormous. [ ... ] > That's a good point; I think most folks have an idea what they want but > they haven't enunciated it and so get drawn off on tangents. I would add > to Andrew's suggestion that people figure out where they can direct their > efforts to get maximum effect with minimum work, since the resources of the > people here are tiny relative to their opponent. Yes, USL is pretty big, but they do have shareholders, and those shareholders (and USL) pay homage only to the almighty dollar. Right now one of those shareholders (Sun) is trying to sell the university a few hundred K$ worth of hardware and software. The first item on the agenda when we meet will be the amended USL complaint, and how Sun can possibly expect us to do business with them when, with the other hand, they are trying to bludgeon us to death through the courts. Sun may not be the largest USL shareholder, however they have a significant portion of the university UNIX market. If the university market stands up and refuses to do business with Sun (a USL shareholder) there will be noise made in USL's direction. Are you considering purchasing something through Sun? Why not give Solbourne or one of the other Sparc clone vendors a call, or better yet, your business. And make damned sure your Sun marketroid knows WHY he didn't get the sale. Isn't Novell a USL shareholder? I've been looking for an excuse to get those Novell networks out of the building :-) --lyndon