Thread by @doctorow

AT&T invented the Unix operating system in 1969. Since then, it has grown to be the basis of almost every computer you use today, from OS X to GNU/Linux, Ios to Android, and all the embedded systems in the "smart" gadgets in your world.

1/

In the early days of Unix, all kinds of companies made their own commercial versions: Sun, SGI, IBM, Apple, DEC, etc.

But AT&T didn't.

2/

The story of how AT&T - a vicious monopolist that jealously guarded its treasures - sat by while others commercialized, popularized and perfected Unix is a fantastic parable about how anti-monopoly laws connect with #AdversarialInteroperability.

eff.org/deeplinks/2020…

3/

In short: AT&T was only spared from a serious antitrust beat-down because the Pentagon intervened to keep it intact during the Korean War. The compromise the DoJ reached was to put AT&T under a "consent decree" that banned it from entering new markets.

4/

So when the legends of Bell Telephone Labs (Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, et al) invented Unix, AT&T just sat on it - until Thompson presented it at a ACM meeting and people started clamoring for licenses to it.

5/

AT&T's lawyers were so gunshy of DoJ scrutiny that they let others use and sell Unix on really open terms, and the community of Unix hackers that emerged to swap patches and improvements created the ethic that turned into the free software movement.

6/

Meanwhile, AT&T's own scientists were so committed to technical excellence that they defied their own bosses to distribute improvements (like hiding data-tapes behind rocks in parks and then anonymously tipping off Unix leaders about where to find them!).

7/

As I write in my case-study, "The DoJ's didn't merely ban AT&T from certain monopolistic conduct—it set up rules and incentives that encouraged AT&T to share, and it stripped AT&T of the legal weapons it needed to stop competitors from making interoperable products."

8/

Today, we've allowed Big Tech to distort the law to create a whole new suite of tools to prevent interoperability: the anti-circumvention rules in DMCA 1201, the CFAA, software patents, and more.

9/

To see new weapons being fashioned before your very eyes, just look at Oracle's bid to make APIs copyrightable.

eff.org/cases/oracle-v…

10/

Adversarial Interoperability once drove dynamism in tech: if your technology dominated a sector, a rival would come along and make something that plugged into it, robbing you of your big margins and forcing you to innovate.

11/

We've let Big Tech climb that ladder...and then kick it away. The pirates of yesteryear have all become admirals.

To read more about adversarial interoperability, check out my other articles and case studies.

eff.org/deeplinks/2019…

eof/