[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Does anyone know of the whereabouts of the s...
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Ask HN: Does anyone know of the whereabouts of the source code of
FlexOS/386?
My goal is to get FlexOS open sourced. - Does anyone know of a copy
of the source code? I contacted the designer and author of much of
FlexOS and he does not know where the source code is.I think it
would be fun to see if FlexOS/386 can be brought back to life.
FlexOS was a powerful and innovative operating system from Digital
Research, the early 1990's. Here is a Byte Magazine review of it
from back then: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bootrino/vintage_
software/master/1991_01_BYTE_FLEXOSS_MUSCLE.pdf Here's the
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexOS Maybe
someone at WindRiver knows where the source code of FlexOS is? The
wikipedia article above says: >>>>When Novell decided to abandon
further development of the various Digital Research operating
systems such as Multiuser DOS (a successor to Concurrent DOS) and
Novell DOS (a successor to DR DOS), they sold FlexOS off to the
Santa Clara, California-based Integrated Systems, Inc. (ISI) for
US$3 million in July 1994.[22] The deal comprised a direct payment
of half this sum as well as shares representing 2% of the company.
The company already had pSOS+, another modular real-time
multitasking operating system for embedded systems, but they
continued to maintain FlexOS as well.[22] FlexOS version 2.33 was
current as of May 1998 and with FlexOS 2.34 to be released soon
after with added support for faster CPUs, 64 MB of memory, EIDE and
ATAPI CDROM drives. >>>>Integrated Systems was bought by their
competitor Wind River Systems in February 2000.
Author : andrewstuart
Score : 47 points
Date : 2022-01-18 18:39 UTC (4 hours ago)
| jonjon10002 wrote:
| It's also worth noting that Wind River purchased Integrated
| Systems almost entirely so they could kill off pSOS and drive
| customers to using their competing VxWorks RTOS. I wouldn't doubt
| if FlexOS is in a similar situation.
|
| It's very likely if you talked to someone at Wind River, they
| would say "why would you want to release FlexOS for free when you
| could license VxWorks for a large price instead?"
| jonjon10002 wrote:
| Wind River just got bought by Aptiv, like literally a week ago.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > My goal is to get FlexOS open sourced. - Does anyone know of a
| copy of the source code
|
| That's not enough; you need to find who owns the copyright.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| True enough - that would be step two after finding the source
| code.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That seems backwards IMO; you need their permission, so
| there's no point in finding the code if you can't get
| permission, and the copyright holder is more likely than
| almost anyone else to know where to get the source anyways.
| mekoka wrote:
| Given two absolute prerequisites, start with what's
| easiest/quicker. To me asking around for the source seems
| to be a pretty low hanging fruit.
| mmastrac wrote:
| The quickest way to figure out the IP owner is by putting
| the code on GitHub and waiting for a DMCA.
|
| (Kidding .. well, half kidding)
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| You can do two things at once! Anyone who has the code
| probably has a lead on the current IP owner if any.
| MaulingMonkey wrote:
| There's no point getting permission - via a potentially
| involved negotiation and lawyers and contracts - if you
| can't even find the code to fulfill that contract with.
|
| In the muddle of defunct companies, mergers, lapsed
| contracts, etc. - figuring out who actually owns the
| copyright can be a bit muddled. An engineer who may have
| squirreled away a copy - or who knows where such a copy
| might be squirreled away - is more likely than almost
| anyone else to know what company might own the copyright,
| and possible points of contact within that company to
| contact to even _try to begin_ negotiation, even if they no
| longer work for the company.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Does anyone here on HN know someone at WindRiver who might know
| more about FlexOS?
| cpach wrote:
| I might have a connection. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Have you contacted Wind River Systems about it yet? You really
| need permission from them to make this happen.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Have you contacted Wind River Systems about it yet? You
| really need permission from them to make this happen.
|
| If they own the copyright, then that's the first thing to do.
| Not because permission is more important, but because it's more
| likely to lead to "we don't even have the source any more, let
| us know if you find it" than if you approach them having a copy
| yourself already. I think your position will be stronger if you
| discover they don't even have a copy. If they do, then you
| don't need to find a copy yourself - they can provide it if
| they give you permission to do what you want.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Copyright law is involved, they have it, you don't. If they
| say no, the project is dead.
| jll29 wrote:
| No, but it means you will need to wait:
| https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html
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(page generated 2022-01-18 23:01 UTC)