On 04/04/17 13:09, Martin Gregorie wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Apr 2017 12:53:17 +0100, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>
>> AFAIK there were no patents on Unix, there were however copyright
>> restrictions on the AT&T source code which Linux avoided by the simple
>> (in principle) expedient of being a clean rewrite while BSD got
>> embroiled in a legal argument over which bits they could distribute and
>> which bits they could not.
>
> I thought Linux was originally a clean rewrite of Minix, which was itself
> a clean rewrite of UNIX for early Intel chips/PCs.
>
>
I am not so sure it was a rewrite of Minix.

AIUI it was a from scratch kernel  that could accept Gnu Unix toolsets
on top

i.e. an operating system that cane with a Unix compatible libc.

Looking at the Wiki suggests that whilst Linus did his development on
Minix, it was a clean fresh brand spanking new kernel that he wrote.

And was at the time (386) hardware specific.



--
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its shoes.

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