Doing some research on the early days of Unix, and have some question marks. Hope you can help me clarify:
Multics was designed by Bell, AT&T, MIT. Bell withdrew from the project and Ken Thompson (an employee at Bell) had set out to build an alternative. Also it is said the motivation was to run 'Space Travel', the game he was developing on a cheaper machine and that he looked for hardware to build it on.
This story sounds very entrepreneurial of Ken, pursuing his ideas even when Bell, his employer decided not to. How did the product of Ken's initiative came to be the property of AT&T?
It is also said that later on Bell's Ken and Dennis Richie worked on additional parts like the file system, and other components that later became unix. Didn't Bell quit the project? How did AT&T got the rights to it all?
Best Answer
This answer is according to my understanding. Comment if you find corrections.
Because:
According to history of Bell Labs at for 1925 – 1984:
Well, Bell quit the project MAC which was associated with MIT not AT&T.
So, since Ken was working for Bell Labs which is partly owned by AT&T, AT&T could impose its rights on Ken's work. If Ken had quit Bell Labs, he could have released his work Unix as he wish.
PS: To avoid this type of licensing restriction, Richard Stallman quit his MIT job: