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SCOsource and LinuxSCOsource and LinuxPosted Jan 29, 2003 17:44 UTC (Wed) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054)Parent article: SCOsource and Linux This 'impressive "SCO Intellectual Property Pedigree"' that SCO has posted is actually a variant on a chart that's been around for a few years; the original author's version can be found at http://www.levenez.com/unix/. While the chart is impressive, SCO seems to be banking on some dubious connections it contains, particularly the connection between Minix and Linux. While Linus used Minix as a development platform in the early days, the chart indicates some sort of derivation beyond that, as if he used Minix code as well. But Linus has said from the beginning that he did not do that. SCO's connection of Linux to their own Unix intellectual property rests solely on this tenuous connection between Minix and Linux. I think SCO (remember, actually Caldera with a new name they purchased) is desperately grasping for some way to get money from Linux, since they apparently haven't been successful by the more direct route. They may come up with something, but I have doubts about the legitimacy of whatever they come up with.
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Pedigree chart wishful thinking Posted Jan 29, 2003 18:49 UTC (Wed) by nas (subscriber, #17) [Link] Not only is the link between Minux and Linux dubious, I think the link between Minux and the original Unix code is also questionable. AFAIK, Minux was a reimplementation of a Unix-like system and was not derived from an existing system. Andrew Tanenbaum used it for teaching students. Any old-timers out there to confirm?Hmm, I wonder if SCO got permission to use Éric Lévénez's chart? It looks like they took it and highlighted the branches that lead to Unix. Nice research work boys. If they didn't get permission, I think they have their own copyright problems. :-)
Pedigree chart wishful thinking Posted Jan 29, 2003 21:00 UTC (Wed) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] Thats certainly my recollection. The only reason its distribution was restricted was because of the agreement Tanenbaum had signed with... Prentice Hall I believe who distributed the book. Even then you could give copies to other under some circumstances. If he'd release Minix to the public domain back then we likely wouldn't ever have heard of Linus.
Pedigree chart wishful thinking Posted Feb 5, 2003 11:14 UTC (Wed) by Soruk (guest, #2722) [Link] AST now has - since he got permission from Prentice-Hall to do so, Minix has been relicensed under a BSD-like licence.I haven't used it in a number of years, but it's still the only freely-available UNIX-like OS thast actually works for sub-386 systems.
Pedigree chart wishful thinking Posted Jan 29, 2003 23:41 UTC (Wed) by da4089 (subscriber, #1195) [Link] i imagine the issue is patents, not copyright, in which case it is the design of features (and possibly their expresion via system calls) that might at issue? for instance, i think DMR has a patent on the setuid mechanism.as i recall, AndyT's stated goal was to make Minix AT&T 7th Ed compatible at the programming level. as an aside, i would have thought that Minix was least likely to have IP problems, being implemented as a set of cooperating servers, rather than a monolithic kernel.
Orginal Unix patents should have expired Posted Jan 29, 2003 23:59 UTC (Wed) by nas (subscriber, #17) [Link] It looks like the setuid patent has expired. I still think SCO is silly to imply that IP flowed from Unix to Minux to Linux.
Pedigree chart wishful thinking Posted Jan 30, 2003 7:57 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] > AFAIK, Minux was a reimplementation of a Unix-like system and was not> derived from an existing system. Minix is not just a re-implementation, but internally a very different > Andrew Tanenbaum used it for teaching students. Any old-timers out there Yes, and he published a text book on operating systems, using Minix as
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