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WHEN SOURCE IS OUTLAWED....ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE SOURCE

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Button:Creator:Product:Date:Group:Meeting:Location:
501Kent TaylorVM8/82SHARE59
The slogan originated with Kent Taylor (GMW) of the VM group at either SHARE 59 or 59.5; at that time a couple of people wore hand-made buttons. At dinner on Sunday, Feb 20, 1983, as SHARE 60 opened, those at the table agreed that such a button would succeed, especially in light of a recent IBM announcement of "restricted source materials" licensing and increased "object code only" distribution. By the end of the dinner, a final design had been selected from two competing entries. Members of the Sunday dinner conspiracy were Nancy Smith, Bill Frantz and Charles Daney of TYM, Al Holmes (STD), Tom Foth (NO) Joe Morris (UNT) and Barry Lieba (IBM) After dinner, Bill, Tom, and Nancy tried to purchase T-shirts with the lettering, but were unable to locate a store with enough letters. At SCIDS later, Bill and Nancy decided to have the buttons made. Nancy completed the artwork during Monday morning sessios, and at lunch Bill and Nancy called the button maker whose Yellow Pages ad said "fastest service in town". He said he could have 500 buttons by 3:00 the next day if they got copy to him in an hour; they did. Bill and Nancy told a few others, and word of the impending button spread until Kent Taylor and others suggested that SHARE management might try to suppress the button if word reached them. To further avoid suppression, Bill Frantz suggested a wholesale scheme: buttons would be sold at $10 for 15 to selected people, who would resell them at the usual $1. With large numbers of buttons sold quickly, there would be no stopping further sales. In addition, the conspirators would be rewarded, and the burden of handling retail sales would be spread over several people. The buttons were ready at noon on Tuesday. Nancy and Al picked them up and packaged them in "2-nickel bags" for whole sale sale. First sales were at the entrance to the Software Service Task Force Report session at 1:00. 360 of the first 500 buttons were sold using the wholesale scheme. The first 500 buttons were sold out by 6:30 pm on Tuesday. Later at SCIDS Nancy got questions from "can you get more" to "how soon can you get more". At the 10:00 break on Wednesday, Nancy called and reordered 300 more, they were ready at 8pm, with the printer staying late to make these up, and as a reward asked that Bill and Nancy explain what it meant: they tried! That second printing of 300 sold out comfortably on Thursday evening. Later, market analysts claimed that 200 of the 400 IBMers present at SHARE 60 took buttons home. That left 600 buttons for the other 4000 or so attendees. Such an analysis indicates that the source issue was near and dear to many IBMers, and that the internal debate was not over at that time. Notes by Nancy Smith. There was a competing entry that said "OCO is LOCO"; both buttons sold out the first day, and people proudly wore both buttons and were quite vociferous in stating their opinions to IBM.
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