Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!yale!cmcl2!lanl!beta!egdorf From: egdorf@zaphod.lanl.gov (Skip Egdorf) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: In What Sense is Sun the "First" Open Systems Manufacturer? Message-ID: Date: 21 Nov 90 20:04:49 GMT References: <1990Nov16.225515.494@zoo.toronto.edu> <1990Nov20.195623.28061@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <2940@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Sender: news@lanl.gov Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Lines: 41 In-reply-to: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM's message of 21 Nov 90 15:15:51 GMT In article <2940@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes: > | While they didn't have to be sued into doing it Sun, with SPARC, has > | done what IBM did decades ago with their 360/370 machines. Both allow > | others to produce hardware compatible systems. > > 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. Gene Amdahl DESIGNED the 360. He then left to build a "better" version from his new company. > Does the license to manufacture > include the right to use the software, like SPARC? Fujitsu won a long-standing fight a few years back that forced IBM to sell OS sources rather than witholding them in an attempt to stave off the clone makers. (others with better memories of this may wish to correct/expand) > > bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) It is interesting, in this day of stretching copyright and patent to cover anything related to computers, to speculate on the legal ramifications of producing a VAX or 386 or MIPS instruction-set clone. I don't mean copying design and microcode, but a pure reverse engineering from the instruction-set up. Were there any issues in the Intel AMD tiff that related to AMD's ability to produce a chip with the same instructions-set etc. as the 386 rather than details of who gets what layout schematics and microcode? Would Amdahl, NAS, etc. get sued by IBM in today's environment if they were to do their cloning afresh? What legal recourse does Sun (or the "free" spin-off that controlls SPARC) have if IEEE does make a SPARC instruction-set public domain? (gee, I don't really have to change that subject line after all...) Skip Egdorf hwe@lanl.gov