Re: SCO (again) and Gartner

From: Alan Hughes (postmaster_at_localhost.localdomain)
Date: 08/18/03 

Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 08:33:01 +0100

"pbs" <pnews@lomarline.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bhp3g2$fnr$1@squay.lomarline.freeserve.co.uk...
> ge0rge wrote:
> > "Steve Naïve" <steven@hogg.org> wrote in message
> > news:Xns93D8AAE43A29EBLANK@195.8.68.222...

<snip>

> Talking about SCOs preposterous claims:
> http://www.caldera.com/scosource/unixtree/unixhistory01.html
>
> IMHO it is one of the worst diagrams of its type I have ever seen
> and seems to be drawn in such a way as to deliberately confuse the
> pedigree of the different UNIX families.

This is not the worst diagram I've ever seen. The development history of
Unix is so complex that any attempt to draw up a pedigree diagram ends up
looking like a mass of cooked spagetti.

> Of all the UNIX roots which SCO could claim for Linux, saying it
> branched from Xenix is par for the course. Funny how MS always
> seems to be popping up in the FUD.

Could be honest stupidity on the part of SCO's legal beagles. AFAIK Linus
used Xenix on the PC that he initially developed Linux on, and in fact for a
long while you needed a Xenix platform to bootstrap Linux on. Also Linux
initially only supported the Xenix file system (at lest until the ext file
system was developed).

Its fairly easy to start from this knowledge and assume that Linux forked
off the Xenix code base (provided that is you are a brain-dead SCO lawyer).
It would be pretty easy to disprove provided someone had a copy of the
initial kernel (version 0.01 I think) and a copy of the Xenix source to
compare it against. BTW kernel.org only has kernels from version 1.0, so
looking there is a waste of time.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Xenix Filesystem
    ... >> Linux doesn't understand divvy, so to mount a xenix fs under linux, ... filesystem, I don't know if a dd copy of a filesystem in a divvy partition ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: Trying to add fat32 partiton to 5.0.6
    ... No version of OSR5 supports FAT32. ... Linux supports one of OSR5's native filesystems, FAT16 is probably ... xenix is little better than dos in that filenames are limited to 14 ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: Alternative to SCO
    ... Just to point out for those unfamiliar with Xenix, ... a 320M Xenix system IS huge when you remember all the options you ... hd transplant for linux to read - linux can mount xenix fs's but it can't ... tar/cpio to floppies - yep, ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Re: phantom files
    ... Florian Diesch schreef: ... When Linux was invented there were at least three commercial Unices ... for i386 (SCO Unix, Scenix and Xenix), and 386BSD was in development. ... when high-end graphics meant SGI. ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: IBM cognoscenti: verification please
    ... Linux pre-installed in the timeframe this individual suggests? ... Definitely not in that timeframe. ... Since a lot of PS/2 cards of that era mentioned support for Xenix, ... machines - If not IBM themselves then perhaps one of their Business ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware)