[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.)
