feld (npub1yck…ujmw) > C and UNIX were invented at Bell Labs. That wasn't publicly funded.
The history of Bell Labs is complicated in this regard.
AT&T and Bell were basically allowed to maintain a monopoly in the communication industry, and even receive lavish funding from the government, with many strings attached:
1. Bell had to remain the R&D division of AT&T, solely focused on innovation - no goals for immediate profitability, and that's why those folks could invent the transistor, the laser, UNIX, C and much more without the pressure of earning calls or layoffs.
2. Bell had to license all of its patents royalty-free (1956 Consent Decree).
This kind of business model is mostly gone nowadays. Bell basically used to operate like a public research institute within a private company, with its innovations released royalty-free, and in practice it was funded by all the telephone users in the US - Michael Riordan called it "a built-in R&D tax on the telephone service". Nobody expected them to align their strategy to the needs of private investors. Had somebody to propose such a business model in the US nowadays, they'd be immediately called communists.
About the Internet - I mostly referred to the TCP/IP stack, which was mostly developed at Berkeley. And the competing proposal (ISO/OSI) was orchestrated by the international organization for standards. Of course, ARPANET was primarily a network built for military and intelligence gathering purposes, but the result was still a product of an orchestrated work between government departments, universities and non-profit organizations. I couldn't imagine any groundbreaking technology or protocol being developed like this today, without Big Tech trying to arrogantly push their way through. Of course, the original purposes of ARPANET were despicable, but here I was talking about business model and the funding strategies, not about the original purposes of the technologies themselves.
Fabio Manganiello
npub1v7…ukv0u
2023-09-22 00:29:00 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…dxwl
Author Public Key
npub1v78mmuz20p6qd6nve30axhqu74avwn4f6z4grhug7755rat7wh3syukv0uPublished at
2023-09-22 00:29:00 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "nostr:npub1yck44z5zqxmwpqzqs75ay6ffjdw843ng9p6mz0lzfff3fgz2djlsngujmw \u003e C and UNIX were invented at Bell Labs. That wasn't publicly funded.\n\nThe history of Bell Labs is complicated in this regard.\n\nAT\u0026T and Bell were basically allowed to maintain a monopoly in the communication industry, and even receive lavish funding from the government, with many strings attached:\n\n1. Bell had to remain the R\u0026D division of AT\u0026T, solely focused on innovation - no goals for immediate profitability, and that's why those folks could invent the transistor, the laser, UNIX, C and much more without the pressure of earning calls or layoffs.\n\n2. Bell had to license all of its patents royalty-free (1956 Consent Decree).\n\nThis kind of business model is mostly gone nowadays. Bell basically used to operate like a public research institute within a private company, with its innovations released royalty-free, and in practice it was funded by all the telephone users in the US - Michael Riordan called it \"a built-in R\u0026D tax on the telephone service\". Nobody expected them to align their strategy to the needs of private investors. Had somebody to propose such a business model in the US nowadays, they'd be immediately called communists.\n\nAbout the Internet - I mostly referred to the TCP/IP stack, which was mostly developed at Berkeley. And the competing proposal (ISO/OSI) was orchestrated by the international organization for standards. Of course, ARPANET was primarily a network built for military and intelligence gathering purposes, but the result was still a product of an orchestrated work between government departments, universities and non-profit organizations. I couldn't imagine any groundbreaking technology or protocol being developed like this today, without Big Tech trying to arrogantly push their way through. Of course, the original purposes of ARPANET were despicable, but here I was talking about business model and the funding strategies, not about the original purposes of the technologies themselves.",
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