[Info-vax] Poulson info from Dave Cantor

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 11/24/2010 1:01 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article<v2tvr7-rc6.ln1 at nntp.local.net>,
> 	HMS Not-So-Astute<alex.buell at munted.org.uk>  writes:
>> On Wed, 2010-11-24 at 16:47 +0000, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> Torvald
>>> =20
>>> Is that somehow supposed to impress people?  He sure didn't impress
>>> Aandrew Tanenbaum, who's opinion I place in a much higher value.=20
>>
>> With installations in the tens of millions compared with that of Minix,
>> the figures alone speak for themselves.=20
>
> In what way?  The only thing Linux has that the other free Unixes don't
> have is hype.  I am amazed that people here who place such a high value
> on the quality of software fall for the Linux snakeoil so fast.
>
>>
>> Tanenbaum has a cheek demanding money for Minix when Linux source code
>> was freely available.=20
>
> Tanenbaum did not want to charge anything for it.  He wanted it to be
> widely available to any student.  Because it was part of a package that
> included a textbook the publisher refused to allow the software to be
> distributed for free.  it cost a grand total of $69.00  and allowed
> multiple copies for that single fee.  Hardly on a par with cost of
> pretty much every other OS of the time.  (So, just howm much did VMS
> cost in 1987 and how much source code did you get with it?)

~$2000 for the feeblest workstation and, of course, NO source code. 
ISTR that the license for source code was something like $20K with 
educational discount~   Whatever the number, you had to REALLY need it 
in order to cough up that much cash.