I remember, back in the 60's when I first learned to program in FORTRAN IV, that Burroughs was a respected, almost revered name in the computer field. It was the hardware preferred by engineers and scientists. It was the line of machines that first ran a halfway usable language, ALGOL60. It was one of the "Seven Dwarves" that successfully competed with big iron from IBM.

Fast forward to 1988. Unisys, the successor to Burroughs, is still producing quality systems. My first contact with UNIX was as a sys admin on one of your 68020-based Sys V minis. I can't recall that it ever crashed.

Of late, Unisys is out of the UNIX biz. You people are now pushing Win NT-based junk (perhaps you should change your name to Ntsys, or better yet, Blue-Screen-of-Death-Sys). The company is no longer technology-driven but bean counter and lawyer driven.

Now, you come up with this harebrained scheme to charge each and every Web site owner $5000.00 to use gif graphics. This would be funny if it did not have tragic overtones. Where would a teenager with his own Web site come up with $5000 (unless from the money he's saving for college)? Do you really think your obsolete compression algorithm is worth five thou per site license? This is a good way to drive all gif graphics off the Net, and have them replaced by superior jpeg and png ones... Your ill-considered action will give Richard Stallman more converts for his thesis that software patents should not be granted under any circumstances. I suggest you take the head of your Bright Ideas Department, hand him a mop and a broom, and have him do some useful work for a change.

The only hope left for your outfit is for Red Hat to do a hostile takeover and fire all the dead wood in Accounting and Legal (after converting all your servers from NT to Linux).

Cancel my previous suggestions about a name change. Hell-In-A-Handbasket Corp. would be more appropriate.


M. L. Cooper


P.S. If you have no objections, I will post this letter on my Web site.

P.P.S. Why was Unisys cited as one of the
Top 100 "Corporate Criminals" of the 1990s?