[vox] Linux was not based on Minix source.

[Mike Simons]

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On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 03:36:27PM -0400, Mike Simons wrote:
> On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 11:13:15AM +0200, Edwin P. Groot wrote:
> > Linux is a derivative of MINIX, which was developed in the early
> > 80's for the IBM PC by an operating systems professor.  MINIX was built
> > from scratch so that UNIX could be studied without infringing on AT&Ts
> > copyrights.  Linus Torvalds took the idea of MINIX and modified it for =
the
> > 386 CPU to take advantage of its virtual machine model.  If anything, A=
ndy
> > Tannebaum should be suing Linus for portions of MINIX being in the Linux
> > kernal!
>=20
>   As ME said... Linux is not derived from MINIX source it was written=20
> from scratch.  Very early versions required you to have Minux running in=
=20
> order to install.  I can find dozens of links that say this, but I'm not
> one I think can be authoritative.


  I found something that looks authoritative.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01

Notes for linux release 0.01
=3D=3D=3D
Although linux is a complete kernel, and uses no code from minix or
other sources, almost none of the support routines have yet been coded.
Thus you currently need minix to bootstrap the system. It might be
possible to use the free minix demo-disk to make a filesystem and run
linux without having minix, but I don't know...
=3D=3D=3D

>   However, if you would like to see SCO's view on the history of Linux...=
=20
> it is *very* interesting:
>=20
>   http://www.sco.com/scosource/unixtree/unixhistory01.html

  I tracked down SCO's source for the graph above.  He did give them
permission to use his graph back in 2002... I'm trying to figure out=20
what he meant by the arrows from one release to the other, is it source
code or idea transfer?

  His work is here: http://www.levenez.com/unix/

--=20
GPG key: http://simons-clan.com/~msimons/gpg/msimons.asc
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