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3.4 KiB
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22 lines
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Unix conspiracy</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../U.html" title="U"/><link rel="previous" href="Unix-brain-damage.html" title="Unix brain damage"/><link rel="next" href="Unix-weenie.html" title="Unix weenie"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Unix conspiracy</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="Unix-brain-damage.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">U</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Unix-weenie.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Unix-conspiracy"/><dt xmlns="" id="Unix-conspiracy"><b>Unix conspiracy</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [ITS] According to a conspiracy theory long popular among
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<a href="../I/ITS.html"><i class="glossterm">ITS</i></a> and <a href="../T/TOPS-20.html"><i class="glossterm">TOPS-20</i></a> fans, Unix's
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growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs,
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whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent
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upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's control.
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This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is
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apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable
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and insecure (so as to require continuing upgrades from AT&T). This
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theory was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in
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the <a href="../B/back-door.html"><i class="glossterm">back door</i></a> entry.</p><p>In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer
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viruses (see <a href="../V/virus.html"><i class="glossterm">virus</i></a>) — but a virus spread to
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computers indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly
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through disks and networks. Adherents of this ‘Unix virus’
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theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation “<span class="quote">Unix is
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snake oil</span>” was uttered by <a href="../D/DEC.html"><i class="glossterm">DEC</i></a> president
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Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began actively promoting its own family of
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Unix workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)</p><p>If there was ever such a conspiracy, it got thoroughly out of the
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plotters' control after 1990. AT&T sold its Unix operation to Novell
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around the same time <a href="../L/Linux.html"><i class="glossterm">Linux</i></a> and other free-Unix
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distributions were beginning to make noise.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="Unix-brain-damage.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../U.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Unix-weenie.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Unix brain damage </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Unix weenie</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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