At the 2022 Linux Conference Australia, Brian Kernighan gave a delightful talk on the early days of Unix at Bell Labs. It’s not so much that Kernighan tells us stories that we haven’t heard before but that he puts everything in context and explains how the unlikely miracle of Unix came about.
At the end of the talk, Kernighan speculates on whether Unix or a similar groundbreaking project could be undertaken today. There are certainly smart guys with good taste like Ritchie and Thompson around now and the open source infrastructure, whose predecessor had a lot to do with Unix’s success, is already in place. What’s missing, he says, is something like Bell Labs.
As Kernighan says, the Labs were basically a tax on telephone service so they had stable funding. More importantly, management took the long view and encouraged the researchers to work on whatever interested them. Industry can’t do that because they are too focused on the short term. AT&T was a monopoly with essentially a guaranteed income so they were relieved from worrying about quarterly results. Academia can’t do it either because they don’t have the funding.
It’s a nice video and well worth watching. Kernighan is an excellent speaker and always enjoyable and informative. The video is 48 minutes, 46 seconds so plan accordingly.