Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Steve Kilbane <steve@whitecrow.demon.co.uk>]

Dave Lukes wrote:
> Unless "minix" refers to more than one OS,
> Tanenbaum's work was, again, I believe, clean-room.

I'm not entirely sure whether that's true, where clean-room
means "without tainting by knowledge of the original".

When describing
the history of MINIX in his Operating Systems, he notes that
V6 was used in courses, but V7 could not be. He continues:

	To remedy this situation, I decided to write a new
	operating system from scratch that would be compatible
	with UNIX from the user's point of view, but completely
	different on the inside. By not using even on line of
	AT&T code, this system avoids the licensing restrictions,
	so it can be used for class or individual study.

Which happens to avoid mentioning whether Tanenbaum was familiar
with the V6 sources. The impression I've generally had was that
MINIX was deliberately different, rather than by mere accident
through unfamiliarity with V6 internals.

But then, there are enough people on this list who'd know for
a fact. :-)

steve