6 ms·
Not only are you not allowed to distribute it by the license, actually distributing it would get you sued for patent violation. Using anything you find in the c
by RyanZAG 13y ago
Not only are you not allowed to distribute it by the license, actually distributing it would get you sued for patent violation. Using anything you find in the code will probably get you sued for patent violation, too.
EDIT: I can just imagine a future lawsuit:
A: Did you read the MS-DOS source code released by Microsoft on XX? We have logs to show you downloaded it.
B: Yes, but that has nothing to do with this lawsuit!
A: Incorrect. The MS-DOS source code you viewed is under Patent ZZ. We believe you used the IP found in the MS-DOS source code to build your flying car.
Judge: Guilty!
- voidlogic 13y agoDon't patents only last 15-20 years?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- 300bps 13y agoDon't patents only last 15-20 years? Yes. Design patents last 14 years. Utility patents last 20 years. The person you are responding to, like most people, likely uses the words copyright, trademark and patent interchangeably as if they are synonyms.
- neurobro 13y agoYes any patents would have expired, although the copyright still has upwards of 100 years left. I don't think reading some source code will put anyone at risk of frivolous lawsuits (unless they actually do infringe, in which case it would be a grain of supporting evidence).
- tanzam75 13y agoRight, any patents from 1983 and 1991 have expired. Besides which, I don't think Microsoft had any patents in 1983. P.S. Google Patents is useless for answering this question. "Referenced by" is included in the search, so any patent from 1983 that is ever referenced by a Microsoft patent (from any year) shows up in the results.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- quasque 13y agoYou can use the "inassignee" and "ininventor" operators to restrict the search, e.g. inassignee:microsoft.
- tanzam75 13y agoThanks for the tip. I finally found the link to Advanced Search. It's off the Settings menu. I could swear it used to be right there next to the Search button ... I guess I've just been using memorized operators on Google, and haven't actually looked for the Advanced Search link in quite a while. It's like what Microsoft does with configuration dialogs. They design a new UI, but it doesn't do 100% of the what old UI did. So they keep the old UI, and shove it one level down. Then in another few years, they'll design yet another new UI, and I'll have to click two levels down ...
- dalke 13y agoNope, none in 1983. I did an advanced search at USPTO for "AN/microsoft and ISD/19750101->19890101" (patents assigned to Microsoft and issued between 1975 and 1989). All it found were: 4,779,187 - Method and operating system for executing programs in a multi-mode microprocessor (filed April 10, 1985, issued October 18, 1988) 4,588,074 - Holder for storing and supporting articles (filed March 21, 1985, issued May 13, 1986) Yes, if I understand it correctly, Microsoft's first patent was "relates to article holders, and more particularly to a dual purpose holder for both storing, and supporting in open position, books, magazines, pamphlets, and similar items." I can't figure out why 5,848,246 (Sun Microsystems, Inc.: Object-oriented system, method and article of manufacture for a client-server session manager in an interprise [sic] computing framework system) references this patent.
- tanzam75 13y ago
- ct1 13y agoMS-DOS is maybe the ugliest operating system I ever had the displeasure of using. There's very little to learn from operating system design point of view in there, and better sources are available under more permissive licenses -- ie open source licenses. It looks like a PR stunt to me.
- segmondy 13y agoIt served it's purpose for it's time. When I had an 8088 computer, MS-DOS was great enough for me, it was simple, fun to understand and work with. Like any OS it had it's quirks, but it got out of the way. Yes, minix ran on 286, so MS could have/should have, but that was then. Don't judge them too harsh.
- justin66 13y ago> Yes, minix ran on 286, so MS could have/should have, but that was then. Don't judge them too harsh. There was xenix. As inconceivable as people might find it today, people CHOSE to run simple DOS over Unix on their very resource-constrained hardware.
- Zardoz84 13y ago> Yes, minix ran on 286 Minix 1.0 ran on a 8086/8088
- IgorPartola 13y agoTrue. Except if you are someone like DOSBox or FreeDOS and want to know how/why some quirk happens in MS-DOS that makes some program go, but not in your code, now you can figure out what's up. In reality, getting the Windows source released so that the Wine team can do this would be much more useful. From what I understand Windows has a lot more undocumented but widely used API's that Wine tries to emulate by trial and error. Instead of having a complete emulation they break it down by which programs it can and cannot run because of these hidden API's. This is definitely a publicity stunt, no question about it. It still provides some very minimal value and perhaps this is MS dipping their toes into the OSS water when it comes to old commercial products.
- joe_the_user 13y agoPlease up vote the point of patents lasting 15-20 years and down vote this confused claim. Software patents are bad enough without gratuitous fear-inducing claims added.