Several years ago I ordered the CD collection of Small C articles, and found it pretty useful for grasping the essentials of compiler design. Even if the information is decades old, it was still relevant for the fundamentals of how C compiling and linking works. (at least on Unix/Linux, which is based on decades old designs)
The overall compile-link step is roughly the same (although LTO changes it a bit), but the compilation process has changed hugely in the last 20 years. Dealing with code 'hand optimised' by people who still have a mental model of how PCC compiles code is a constant source of pain.
Why would they do that? If you're a cosmetics company and you can buy a startup that owns the patents on a technique that actually works, then you'd be stupid to keep competing on a level playing field when you could be the only company that's selling the real thing. Even if you multiply your normal profit margin by a factor of ten, you're still going to be selling huge quantities and raking in the money.
The problem with these conspiracy theories is that they assume that people with large entrenched interests and lots of money somehow have an aversion to turning their big pile of money into an enormous pile of money.
Theres a few small upstarts arround too but they tend to have negligable coverage areas.
BT is required to allow third parties to install equipment in the exchanges ('local loop unbundling'), and while most of the companies that take advantage of this are small local affairs, TalkTalk has quite a lot of coverage on LLU exchanges. Since BT won't sell naked ADSL lines, they've priced themselves completely out of the market in areas with Virgin Media coverage.
Pris was made years ago for off-world use. Rachel is a recent creation to serve as a test subject / surrogate daughter
In the book, Pris and Rachel are the same model and identical. Rachel seduces Deckard so that he will have an emotional reaction to Pris, which will slow him down. In the film, she seduces him because the film wanted some implication of sex at that point.
Happiness is twin floppies.