Unix conspiracy

[ITS] According to a conspiracy theory long popular among {ITS} and {TOPS-20} fans, Unix's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in the {back door} entry.

In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer viruses (see {virus}) -- but a virus spread to computers indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and networks. Adherents of this `Unix virus' theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation "Unix is snake oil" was uttered by {DEC} president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began actively promoting its own family of Unix workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)

If there was ever such a conspiracy, it got thoroughly out of the plotters' control after 1990. AT&T sold its Unix operation to Novell around the same time {Linux} and other free-Unix distributions were beginning to make noise.

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