Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 12th Nov 2007 16:44 UTC, submitted by Oliver
"This is extraordinary news for all nerds, computer scientists and the Open Source community: the source code of the MULTICS operating system (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), the father of UNIX and all modern OSes, has finally been opened [get it here]. Multics was an extremely influential early time-sharing operating system started in 1964 and introduced a large number of new concepts, including dynamic linking and a hierarchical file system. It was extremely powerful, and UNIX can in fact be considered to be a 'simplified' successor to MULTICS (the name 'Unix' is itself a hack on 'Multics'). The last running Multics installation was shut down on October 31, 2000."
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-02-22
"it will be fun for OS hobbyists.
Only those who already know, or are willing to learn, PL/1. That's probably a vanishingly small number of people. " To be fair, he did specify 'OS hobbyists.' What an OS hobbyist is willing to do, and will find fun, is not representative of what most people are willing to do...
Edited 2007-11-12 19:12 UTC
Member since:2005-12-15
Member since:2005-07-07
I'm sure Microsoft wont release the Windows 3.11 source code because there's still bits of it in Vista. ;-)
Forget that. There is still a crapload of DOS in Vista. Microsoft's operating systems just collect more cruft as they release newer versions. All because they are bent on supporting legacy software which, oddly enough, doesn't work very well most of the time.
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Member since:
2005-12-14
I hope this will entice more companies to release the source code to their EOL'd products! In practical terms this isnt of much use of course, however it will be fun for OS hobbyists.