> This will probably be the last one of these that _I_ report, anyway. > > http://www.linuxgram.com/article.pl?sid=02/04/16/1931245
We have the making of a deal here. It will probably be the last one that _I_ read. Mark's not quite right, though: 'And by the way, Khan says, "IBM was forced to offer the OS because it was mandated in the IBM antitrust lawsuit years ago." Since he has chosen to go back so far, I feel obliged to point out that until that point we had provided an OS for free to customers and with source code. And yes, we did charge other hardware vendors for it. But that was the then business model of nearly some 35-years ago. Talk about sins of the father.' Actually, IBM didn't charge other vendors for it. Early System/360 operating systems were public domain - not just free of charge but also uncopyrighted - anyone could take one and turn it into a chargeable or non-chargeable product at will. I have a copy of the original letter to Dr Amdahl's lawyers confirming this: "IBM asserts no rights over its Systems Control Programming". That is the environment in which IBM rose to world dominance, and perhaps one reason why they find Linux so attractive today - with its more modern analogue of the old public domain concept. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.com +44 7785 302 803 +49 173 6242039
