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From section 8:

Perhaps paradoxically, the success of UNIX is largely due to the fact that it was not designed to meet any predefined objectives ... Our goals throughout the effort, when articulated at all, have always concerned themselves with building a comfortable relationship with the machine and with exploring ideas and inventions in operating systems. We have not been faced with the need to satisfy someone else’s requirements, and for this freedom we are grateful

And then 8.1:

The success of UNIX lies not so much in new inventions but rather in the full exploitation of a carefully selected set of fertile ideas, and especially in showing that they can be keys to the implementation of a small yet powerful operating system.