From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Jun 17 4:53:38 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from ringworld.nanolink.com (diskworld.nanolink.com [195.24.48.189]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6ED1937B408 for ; Sun, 17 Jun 2001 04:52:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from roam@orbitel.bg) Received: (qmail 903 invoked by uid 1000); 17 Jun 2001 11:50:17 -0000 Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 14:50:17 +0300 From: Peter Pentchev To: Jeroen Massar Cc: 'Jordan Hubbard' , hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Query: How to tell if Microsoft is using BSD TCP/IP code? Message-ID: <20010617145017.B731@ringworld.oblivion.bg> Mail-Followup-To: Jeroen Massar , 'Jordan Hubbard' , hackers@freebsd.org References: <20010615135713Y.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <001501c0f71e$f00f7bc0$420d640a@HELL> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <001501c0f71e$f00f7bc0$420d640a@HELL>; from jeroen@unfix.org on Sun, Jun 17, 2001 at 01:16:20PM +0200 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, Jun 17, 2001 at 01:16:20PM +0200, Jeroen Massar wrote: > Jordan Hubbard wrote: > > I've had several marketing types approach me recently for details as > > to whether or not Microsoft was using the BSD TCP/IP stack and/or user > > utilities, and though it's always been "common knowledge" in the > > community that they were, when I set about to "prove" it I found it to > > be less easy than I'd thought. I've strings'd various binaries and > > DLLs in my copy of Windows 98 but have yet to find anything resembling > > proof. Does anyone out there have any details or discovery techniques > > for confirming or disproving this assertion either way? It would be > > very useful (for us) from a PR standpoint to know. > > I don't know what you are trying to get from all this, > especially the "It would be very useful (for us) from a PR standpoint to > know." part. > It all sounds really odd to me but alas a cat does stupid things when it > gets cornered... > I sincerely hope that you BSD guys&gals stay far far away from the > "microsoft is evil, we can't win it easily so let's bash it to > hell"-attitude. > {and that's my opinion, it's a freespeech world so don't start flaming > me all of a sudden) Your technical arguments are very nice and may turn out to be useful. However, I can't say I agree with your comments. Jordan did NOT say that he wanted to prove MS had, like, stolen the BSD networking code; he merely said he was interested in proving or disproving any degree of BSD-derivation of the Windows TCP/IP stack. Saying that Solaris, IRIX, AIX and who-not have great parts of the OS derived from SysV or BSD code is not really 'bashing' those OS's, is it? There is still a large amount of their own code, created with a large amount of work put in; the 'derived' part simply means that they have given credit to others' work by reusing it. Thus, if it turns out that Microsoft have really derived their TCP/IP stack from the BSD one, this would not mean they've stolen the BSD stack for lack of wits to write their own; it would simply means that they have decided that the BSD stack was a nice piece of code, and it would not have been worth it to put in all the effort necessary to rewrite it from the ground up. G'luck, Peter -- What would this sentence be like if it weren't self-referential? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message