Daily Tech headline: “Microsoft Wants Royalties From Linux and Open-Source”. Since I have been around before there was a Microsoft (Gates and Ballner included), I just could not let this go by with a comment on the issue as why Microsoft, their legion of company lawyers and their claims are full of fresh slimy bull defecation. Software piracy followed by eventual M&A of the legal owner of the targeted software, while under the protected of relentless legal muscle, is the secret to the MS rise to power in the workstation/server operating systems world. Read on to get some ancient but brief history behind the MS empire.
Long before there was Apple, DOS, PCDOS,MSDOS,Windows etc, there was Ham Radio Operators. Following the launch of an experimental sub-orbital satellite with repeater circuitry exclusively for Ham Radio operator messages, Hams soon discovered that they could not effectively manage message streams from the satellite using standard manual frequency control procedures. So a group of enterprising Ham/engineers designed elementary automatic control systems using the new Intel 8008 microprocessors. The hardware for these new control systems developed by the Hams was configured on individual PC Cards with each card plugged into a 100 pin connector, with the external pins of each connector wired between connectors in parallel. This connector configuration was called the S-100 bus due to the parallel positioning of adjacent connectors. Whereas many Hams were building systems for the same purpose, the S-100 bus quickly became an unofficial standard (IEEE696 withdrawn). The S-100 bus also stimulated a fast growing “computer hobbiest” group, who purchased S-100 based system kits from companies like MTS (Altair). The early hobby systems used teletype I/O and computer programs and data were stored on punched papertape. Derivatives of the Dartmouth College Basic language program compiler were among the first applications to run on these systems. These Basic language compilers were used to generate early control software for these systems. This was the era before cassette tape or floppy disk recording.
Subsequently, Gary Kildall was employed by Intel to develop an operating/control program for a new generation of automated Logic Analyzers. Intel was developing the prototype for the 8080 SBC 80/10 based Single Board Computer (SBC). Gary developed a microprocessor operating control program for the Intel Logic Analyzer called Control Program/Monitor or CP/M. The name was straight forward, CP or control program for the microprocessor and the M for montoring the SBC’s hardware bus. In those days people wrote a lot of assembly language code to control the microprocessor and manually loaded it into memory byte by byte generally using toggle switches or paper tape if a teletype was available. However, other support instrumentation was needed to monitor the execution of the program loaded into the processor’s memory. This was the job of the Intel Logic Analyzer with CP/M. Kildall’s company quickly became the generic operating system for all S-100 and Intel Based SBC micro systems exploding onto the marketplace. These new systems were actively replacing the old proprietary based minicomputers from DEC and Data General at a fraction of the cost.
CP/M was constructed on the microprocessor’s Basic Input Output System or BIOS. The BIOS was the interface to the peripheral world for CP/M, which provided the means to systematically transfer data between the microprocessor and other external peripherals. This provided the flexibility needed to enable the microprocessor to fit into a potential universe of control applications. Lastly, when cassettes became available as data recording/playback devices, Gary defined this class of periphals by a simple letter from the alphabet, starting with the letter A. So when the micro was booted and loaded with the operating system, it placed the familiar >A prompt on the teletype (or later on CRT Monitor display). Later when floppy disks were added to CP/M, to handle a pair of disk drives, a second letter, “B” was added to the BIOS.
IBM developed the 8080 Mother Board based Personal Computer primarily for office secretarial use as a replacement for their very mature IBM Selectric typewriter. Noting that CP/M had become the accepted Operating System of the 8080 based computer world, IBM approached Digital Research, in particular Dr. Gary Kildall to adapt CP/M for the IBM PC and license it to IBM. However, it is my understanding that Gary had little regard for IBM and rejected the proposal summarily out of hand. As a result IBM in a panic to meet a looming deadline, made a number of inquiries for a OS developer for their PC. They were subsequently referred to a small 2 man computer applications programming shop in Washington, named Microsoft. There they signed a contract with a young man named Bill Gates, and Microsoft developed a CP/M clone complete with the BIOS and well known >A prompt for the IBMPC. The new OS was named DOS for Disk Operating System. Since the projected user of the IBM PC was the company secretary, it was assumed that disks would be the primary storage for company documents, so the primary function of the system would be recording and retrieval of disk based documents, hence DOS was appropriate.
As the sales of DOS began to skyrocket, Microsoft dropped the DOS name on a key hardware revision and renamed the new OS MSDOS. IBM had rights only to DOS, and on the same major hardware revision upgraded DOS and renamed it to PCDOS. The IBM Mother Board was reverse-engineered over in Tiawan and soon PC clones were dominating the marketplace. As a result IBM soon dropped PCDOS as a product.
Microsoft has reached the end of the road with its BIOS architecture which it has used throughout the DOS and Windows generations. This simple architecture is now overwhelmed by hackers worldwide and cost MS OS users billions in internet security software to provide safety for their computer systems and security for their data. This is compounded by the latest push by Business and government to require that local radiated transmission of PC data as radio signals which can be intercepted by low tech radio equipment be suppressed. All of these factors are driving MS to acquire exclusive rights to Linux. The architecture of Linux is based on UNIX and it has a well designed kernal as the heart of the operating system, and this kernal has the most sophisticated security system available to the general public. Further, Linux has had millions of people maintaining and upgrading the system, so it is further advanced than Vista or any other present or future MS OS product. Microsoft’s play is to FORCE one by one the merchants of Linux out of business and then release Linux under their own newly patented name. They intend to wind up with a well developed highly stable secure Operating System just for flexing their legal muscle. The reason that they are not going after UNIX OS products is that most UNIX workstations run on non Intel architectures and this market is small compared to the PC market on a world wide basis.
Why should you care about this as an issue. Well, if Free Open-Source software disappears from the scene. ultimately all of us will lose an important freedom.
Microsoft will not prevail in this effort world wide as it can only make its moves and file its motions in courts with U.S. jurisdiction. For example, China has already adopted Linux as its national Operating System software. Somehow I don’t think Microsoft will be successful in collecting royalties from the Chinese government for their continued use of Linux.