Microsoft Services for Unix and OpenBSD

ubiquitin writes "If you use strings on Microsoft's Services for Unix (SFU) interoperability suite which was developed by Interex you find that it is largely composed of source from the OpenBSD 3.0 source tree according to a recent deadly.org article."

Re:What's your point?

[Horny Smurf]

GPL, BSD, it doesn't matter. Services For Unix includes the gcc compiler (and source code!). MS isn't selling the command-line tools. The source code is out there, and anyone that interesetd in Unix knows where to find it and how to compile it.

They're selling a posix-compatability layer, they're own (well, interix) code that provides full posix compatability in NT/2k/xp. The command-line tools is just icing on the cake.

The difference between BSD and GPL licensing

[martinde]

MS has every right to do this with BSD licensed code. And they do with GPLed code to, but if it was GPLed code then they would have to release the source to the derivative product under the GPL.

Note that I'm not making any statements for or against either license, or for or against MS. I'm just pointing the key the difference in these popular licenses.

Re:What's your point?

[hey!]

Of course it's not illegal.

It's just another example of how MS's PR is hypocritical. Open source is supposed to be the end of freedom, democracy and capitalism. But we knew that MS PR was hypocritical; it's hardly unique in that regard.

I guess from a PR perspective it's newsorthy as a counter to MS claims. From a technical perspective, of course they used BSD'd code to create Unix services. That's how anybody with any common sense would do it, both from the point of view of effort and from the point of view of compatibility.

Cywin is better

[ozzee]

With cygwin you get true UNIX compatability and hundreds of unilities including ssh and X terminal sessions.

... better still, it does not cost $99.

Re:What's your point?

[gomerbud]

There is some code in there that is licensed from SCO. For example, the Services for Unix includes David Korn's shell, not the public domain version. However, if you use 'ident' on the C library to print out the CVS tags, you'll see mostly OpenBSD code.