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From: dhinds@elaine10.stanford.edu (David Hinds)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: In What Sense is Sun the "First" Open Systems Manufacturer?
Message-ID: <1990Nov21.205753.13677@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 21 Nov 90 20:57:53 GMT
References: <1990Nov20.195623.28061@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <2940@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <1990Nov21.194240.28355@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
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In article <1990Nov21.194240.28355@Neon.Stanford.EDU> andy@Theory.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>In article <2940@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>>
>>  Where did you get the info? I didn't realize that IBM gave Amdahl and
>>the others the plans for their CPU and let them make it. Actually I
>>thought they were reverse engineered.
>
>Either IBM's lawyers are worse than almost every other manufacturers,
>or IBM allowed the 360/370 clone makers to exist.  Sun helps more, but
>that's a difference of degree.

    I believe that IBM OS's are public domain - you can just pick up an MVS
tape and pop it into an Amdahl clone.  However, I think that some of this
was forced on IBM as a result of anti-trust suits a long time ago - I don't
remember the details.

 -David Hinds
  dhinds@cb-iris.stanford.edu