MS-DOS Not Stolen, New Forensic Analysis Concludes

theodp writes "Challenging earlier assertions that Bill Gates got the rewards due Gary Kildall, a forensic analysis conducted for the latest issue of IEEE Spectrum concludes that the landmark MS-DOS operating system which Bill Gates and Microsoft licensed to IBM was an original piece of work, not stolen goods. Using his company's CodeSuite forensic software, Bob Zeidman said he found no evidence that QDOS or MS-DOS was copied from or was a derivative of Gary Kildall's CP/M. So, what do you think of Microsoft expert witness (pdf) Zeidman's "if-the-codebase-doesn't-fit-you-must-acquit" arguments?"

Comments

Alternatively...

[DWMorse]

Using his company's CodeSuite forensic software,

Alternate summary: CodeSuite found not to work as forensic software!

Re:Alternatively...

[rvw]

Using his company's CodeSuite forensic software,

Alternate summary: CodeSuite found not to work as forensic software!

Alternate headline: Microsoft acquires new research software suite

Re:"The smearing of a computer legend"

[Zaelath]

Andrew Orlowski is to journalism as Tammy Faye Baker is to cosmetics.

that's a relief

[jjeffries]

"Whew!" said Mr. Kildall, from the grave. "I'm glad this slanderous attack on my programming skills has come to an end, and I have finally been exonerated."

Re:"The smearing of a computer legend"

[ArhcAngel]

Andrew Orlowski is to journalism as Tammy Faye Baker is to cosmetics.

So you are saying he is keeping at least 3 major publications in business?

Re:Old news - it never came close to CP/M

[Joce640k]

Go back to your Amiga.

Re:meh

[mcgrew]

I think it's interesting only as a matter of curiosity at this point.

I really doubt that NASA's computers are running IBM-DOS 1.0...