From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9 In-Reply-To: Message from Dave Lukes of "Tue, 17 Feb 2004 14:58:00 GMT." <1077029880.27578.94.camel@zevon> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: Steve Kilbane Message-Id: Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 22:17:32 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e8ddd6ec-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 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