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From: hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at (Peter Holzer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Reusing Minix Source (was: Re: Redistributing Minix command source)
Message-ID: <2410@tuvie.UUCP>
Date: 17 Apr 91 14:38:19 GMT
References: <1991Apr8.174713.23684@doe.utoronto.ca> <41@ctcg.UUCP>
Sender: news@tuvie.UUCP
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To make matters a little more complicated (most Minix tools are
explicitely public domain, and most authors can be contacted by
email, so you can just ask them), how is the situation with parts of
the Minix kernel/MM/FS? Minix is definitely not public domain, but it
is meant for learning about OS's. The best way to learn something is to
do it. If I wanted to write an OS of my own (no, I am not seriously 
considering it), could I use parts of Minix (e.g. device drivers), 
change them to fit my OS, and still make my OS public domain?
Or would I have to rewrite everything myself? I guess for most device
drivers the only parts that would remain unchanged are the ones which
actually ontrol the device and you haven't much choice how write them
anyway. All the algorithms used in Minix are also described in The
Book, and if I implemented them after the text that would be ok (I hope
nobody has patented them yet :-), so why can't I just copy parts of the
code?.
--
|    _  | Peter J. Holzer                       | Think of it   |
| |_|_) | Technical University Vienna           | as evolution  |
| | |   | Dept. for Real-Time Systems           | in action!    |
| __/   | hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at                 |     Tony Rand |