I just got word, that David Korn, father of the kornshell, and his co-worker Glenn Fowler were laid off by AT&T. Here is a posting by Glenn Fowler on the ksh-users mailing list (removed email addresses):
As has been pointed out several times on the AST and UWIN lists, AT&T gives very little support to OpenSouce software, which is why we have so few people involved with our rather large collection of AST software. In spite of this, ksh, nmake, vczip, UWIN and other AST tools continue to be used in several AT&T projects.
It turns out that software isn't the only thing lacking support: both dgk (AT&T fellow, 36 years of service) and gsf (AT&T fellow, 29 years of service) have been terminated, effective October 10. Our third major partner, Phong Vo (AT&T fellow, 32 years of service), left a few months ago for Google. The UWIN maintainer, Jeff Fellin, is still with AT&T and provides UWIN support for some critical operations.
Both dgk and gsf will continue to work on AST software, and might actually have more time (at least in the short run) to focus on it.
The download site and mail groups will remain within AT&T for at least the next several months. Our AT&T colleague, dr.ek, AST user and bug detector, will maintain the site. We have secured the astopen.org domain and are investigating non-AT&T hosting options, including a repository with bug tracking.
The process of change will take time; the patience of the user community will be greatly appreciated. Its quite a shock to have 3 weeks to plan personal, career, and hacking futures after working in an environment that has essentially been stable for almost 30 years. The user groups will be informed as plans solidify.
New email:
dgk \*****
gsf \*****
Switch over to these soon: AT&T does not forward email of former employees.
Thanks
-dgk
-gsf