Mike McCarty wrote:
Skunk Worx wrote:
[snip]
Kudos to RedHat for sticking to their guns. Unix predates MS-anything
by decades so it's all kind of humorous.
I'm not sure this is true, but even if it were, Linux is not UNIX.
What we commonly call Linux is actually Linux (the kernel) which
doesn't predate MS products, and GNU, which, as we all know, means
GNU is Not UNIX. So, Unix dates have nothing to do with this discussion.
Mike
I'm thinking along the lines of the traditional meaning of 'patent' (as
a layman) that is, if the 'central idea' of the patent in question has
been in common use elsewhere prior to the IP claimant's application the
patent may be proven invalid in a court of law.
IANAL so if actual case law differs that's my bad. Still, if I am
correct, then UNIX has everything to do with the discussion.
The key word being 'elsewhere', not necessarily linux.
Bell Labs "UNIX Programmer's Manual" (Wikipedia) November, 1971.
Apple II (Wikipedia) 1977.
CP/M (Wikipedia) 1977.
MS-DOS 1.14 (Wikipedia) July, 1981.
MS Windows 1.0 (Wikipedia) November 1995.
Personally, I was using CP/M and/or ZCPR throughout 1980-1984.
For a short time, I worked for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC),
whose primary claim to fame was a fortran compiler dating back to around
the late 1950's/early 1960's. Why would they create a frickin' compiler
if there were no OS to run it? Or coders to code for it?
I also know one person who claims MS hired a batch of X-Window
programmers away from MIT (Big Iron Unix) to do their Windows
underpinnings, and specifically recalls the news item as the event occurred.
Let alone the IP mix when MS pulled the primary engineering staff from
DEC. Remember : WNT = (VMS)++
Or all the cross licensing that went on between IBM and MS during the
NT-OS/2 collaboration.
It gets really messy if anyone in the big iron category (ATT, SGI, Sun,
IBM, Unisys, TOG etc.) bothered to patent any UNIX related IP around the
time that software patents became legal (mid-1990's).
The unspoken idea here is that TOG, SGI, IBM etc. were conscious of MS'
patent activity and took action to protect their IP.
MS appears to promote the idea that no computer would boot if not for
their tireless efforts. I think history and the facts speak for themselves.
---
John
