griffith@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Michael Griffith) (10/10/90)
Does anyone know if Minix is derived from the Prentice-Hall Xinu source? I have an old (read 1984) book on Xinu and noticing that the publishers were the same (unless my memory already betrays me) I wondered if Minix was a result of developement beyond the stage of Xinu or if Prentice-Hall was just in the business of selling source code to operating systems for hackers. Also, does anyone know what, if any, conditions of license apply to the source code for Xinu appearing in said book (Okay, maybe I didn't. "Operating System Design: The Xinu Approach"). | Michael Griffith | If I had an opinion it certainly | | griffith@eecs.ee.pdx.edu | wouldn't be the same one as | | ...!tektronix!psueea!eecs!griffith | Portland State University anyways. |
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (10/10/90)
In article <291@pdxgate.UUCP> griffith@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Michael Griffith) writes: >Does anyone know if Minix is derived from the Prentice-Hall Xinu source? Putting my linguist hat on: Yes. Of course. The author obviously knows. How could he not know? Thus SOMEBODY certainly knows. Putting my MINIX-author hat on: No. They are unrelated. XINU Is Not Unix. More specifically the system call interface is not at all UNIX-like. It's probably closer to CP/M than to UNIX. The utility programs aren't UNIX-like. It's very different. That Doug Comer and I happen to have the same publisher is an accident. I offered my first book to Addison Wesley, McGraw-Hill and John Wiley. All rejected it. I suspect they may now regret that. Serves them right. In retrospect, I'm glad I'm with PH. Despite their occasional screw-ups with shipping the wrong MINIX box, as a publisher they are very good, and their computer science editors are very helpful. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)