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"Linux was derived from Minix"
Nope ...
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/
Andy Tanenbaum, 20 May 2004 :
"Of course it is always true in science that people build upon the work of their predecessors. Even Ken Thompson wasn't the first. Before writing UNIX, Ken had worked on the MIT MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service) system. In fact, the original name of UNIX was UNICS, a joke made by Brian Kernighan standing for the UNIplexed Information and Computing Service, since the PDP-7 version could support only one user--Ken. After too many bad puns about EUNUCHS being a castrated MULTICS, the name was changed to UNIX. But even MULTICS wasn't first. Before it was the above-mentioned CTSS, designed by the same team at MIT.
Thus, of course, Linus didn't sit down in a vacuum and suddenly type in the Linux source code. He had my book, was running MINIX, and undoubtedly knew the history (since it is in my book). But the code was his. The proof of this is that he messed the design up. "




Member since:
2006-03-14
Your remark would have been correct if you have said BSD instead of Minix though.
I stand by my remark. Morton's implication was that OpenSolaris shouldn't have forked from Solaris. Linux was derived from Minix. So what I'm getting at is, why does Morton think the OpenSolaris fork is wrong, but Link forking from Minix is ok? Granted, Linux today looks nothing like what it did when Linus first parted it from Minix. Who's to say OpenSolaris won't be radically different from Solaris years from now?