[TUHS] Story about Microsoft and *ix

Heinz Lycklama heinz at osta.com
Fri Apr 9 08:25:16 AEST 2021


As part of UNIX/Xenix history it is interesting to note that
Microsoft did participate in the early /usr/group Standard.
We started this work in 1981 and produced the Standard
in November 1984. The Standard focused primarily on the
C language interface to the UNIX operating system.

We made every effort to include as many companies as
possible in the development of UNIX systems, Including
UNIX-like systems, and companies involved in developing UNIX
applications. About 70 people from more than 50 companies
are listed as involved in the development of the /usr/group
Standard. This included IBM, AT&T, DEC, SCO, ISC, plus many
other companies - large and small. Henry Burgess of Microsoft
was one of the early members, but Bill Gates stopped his
participation in this standards effort about one year after
the start of this standards effort, as I recall.

At the end of the development of this standard, further work
on standardization was handed over to IEEE for the development
of the POSIX Standard. The first edition of the IEEE Standard
Portable Operating System Interface for Computer Environments
(IEEE Std 1003.1) was published in 1988.

Heinz

On 4/8/2021 12:24 AM, Thomas Paulsen wrote:
> Hi,
> please red 
> http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/xenix_microsoft_shortlived_love_affair_with_unix.shtml
> before posting. I can confirm many of the topics the author mentions.­
>
>     *Von:* Dan Stromberg <drsalists at gmail.com>
>     *Datum:* 08.04.2021 07:21:12
>     *An:* TUHS main list <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
>     *Betreff:* [TUHS] Story about Microsoft and *ix
>
>     I heard a while back, that the reason that Microsoft has avoided
>     *ix so meticulously, was that back when they sold Xenix to SCO, as
>     part of the deal Microsoft signed a noncompete agreement that
>     prevented them from selling anything at all similar to *ix.
>     True?
>
>
>
> *Gesendet mit Firemail.de - Freemail* 

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