lubkin@apollo.uucp (David Lubkin) (07/09/88)
OSF is presumably going to use the established method for getting
out from under licenses: hire employees who have demonstrably never
had access to source code, have them work at a separate facility,
be able to prove it, and have the backbone and wherewithal to fight
in court.
Phoenix did this to create a work-alike to the MS-DOS BIOS, which
they then licensed to many manufacturers, thereby creating the PC
clone market. Lynx recently announced a "POSIX compatible, SVID
compatible" (whatever that means) real-time almost-UNIX that does
not require an AT&T license.
Given the money and the will, it's not that hard.
I wonder if they'll start from scratch or include the various public
domain pieces floating around the net (including the pd MINIX add-ons).
-- David Lubkin.
mammalian ARPA: lubkin@apollo.com
reptilian ARPA: apollo!lubkin@eddie.mit.edu
mammalian UUCP: lubkin@apollo.uucp
reptilian UUCP: {mit-erl,yale,uw-beaver,umix,decvax}!apollo!lubkin