Microsoft Tight-Lipped On Unix Ownership Question
Submitted by srlinuxx on Mon, 12/10/2007 - 23:13.
For months, I've been trying to get Microsoft to answer a few questions about the Unix technologies in its intellectual property portfolio. Microsoft agreed to an interview, then backed out. So the question remains: How much Unix code does Microsoft have its hands on?
Microsoft's Unix roots go back more than 25 years. The company developed a version of Unix called Xenix in the 1980s that was widely used in its day. Separately, Microsoft acquired and distributed a software package called Windows Services for Unix that includes a Unix subsystem, hundreds of Unix utilities, and related tools. That software layer, redubbed the Subsystem for Unix-based Applications, comes included with Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions and will be bundled into the soon-to-ship Windows Server 2008. It lets you run Unix apps on Windows.
Just how much Unix code does Microsoft have in its possession, either through internal development, acquisition, or license agreements with other technology companies? And where is that code being used in Microsoft's product line or by other vendors? Microsoft won't discuss it.
»
- Login to post comments
- 539 reads
Software history ? Unix and BSD cover most modern OS ?
Unix was invented by Bell Labs of AT&T, but very buggy because of Lab employees can freely add and remove codes just like open sourced community today. It is extremely poor in organization. Utility often crashed into execution area of memory; until in 1991, I asked to have all addresses registered to prevent crashes and assert control of offsets in memory assignment. The first attempt to have protected momory addresses in Unix.
AT&T had tried to sue U of California, Berkeley, on copyright infringement; but lost due to the fact that AT&T came to court with dirty hands themsleves; when BSD codes were discovered in AT&T copyright.
Since then AT&T gave up on their copyright, because of infrinement of BSD codes. So, when windows NT was written in San Francisco, the network operating system was based on BSD codes. Dos was based on CPM; and win95 window manager was foobar layout and rendering engine. It is still basically the same.
Linux commands, of course, is both Unix SYSV(all other distros) and BSD(Slackware).