> My understanding of AIX was that IBM licensed the System V source code and then proceeded to "make it their own"...

> The shocker - they changed all the error messages to error codes with a look at the manual requirement...

> License the source, change the name and then beat it to death.

Not just error codes, also configuration file stanzas and SMIT(e)! :-(

AIX wasn't the first (QNX, maybe?), and it was initially derived from AT&T code, but it was intended not to be:

Someone at IBM publicly stated their intention, quoted in an interview in one of the industry/VAR magazines, to avoid the license by replacing all the AT&T source code with their own. Though AFAIK this effort eventually sputtered and died in favour of Linux.

I recall thinking at the time that's a "once bitten, twice shy" reaction to licensing DOS/Windows from Microsoft, "Oh, no, we're not going *there* again".

I was (briefly) at Wang Australia (late 80's?) where we (re)sold RISC/6000 Unix/y systems, along with MIPS and HP. The MIPS agreement was local to Oz, but IBM and IIRC HP were global. Maybe the year before the U.S. head office filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors... when that happened, I got an apologetic phone call from my friend & colleague Ross Leighton who had recruited me from Pyramid the year before to support the Unix effort he was putting together at Wang Oz -- though it was too little, too late...

Stuart.

p.s. Dave Horsfall: Would you know Ross from Lionel Singer Group/Corp and Pyramid Technology Australia?

I had been at LSG/LSC and then the memorably-named PTC BURP at Bond Uni Research Park.

Recall PTAs books of customer SFA forms, in triplicate: Software Fault Advice about which we could do Sweet F*ck All.

(until some pointy-haired boss changed the name)