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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?"
I think it's interesting only as a matter of curiosity at this point.
Using his company's CodeSuite forensic software,
Alternate summary: CodeSuite found not to work as forensic software!
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
Literally in the process of reading a dismissal of that same analysis. See what you think...
Always thought the issue was that MS did not have a license to re-license (e.g. to IBM) the product which was created by 'Seattle Computer Products'.
No brain, no pain.
I don't think many of us who were around at the time gave much credence to the idea that DOS was derivative of CP/M 86. Had it been, it would have been a better OS.
What next? Proof that the Apple II wasn't copied from the Commodore PET?
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
Why is it OK to clone operating system APIs but not games?
Windows? -> copy of MacOS Classic
Any more than Android or GNOME or KDE is a copy of Apple products?
"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."
It means:
Challenging earlier assertions that Bill Gates got the rewards [that were] due [for/to] Gary Kildall
And yes, it's standard English.
which is totally what she said
QDOS was actually quite similar to CP/M in it's structure, and CP/M86 was different in that it actually made use of the improvements offered in the 8086 processor. QDOS was written as if an 8080 to 8086 translator had been used to code it. However MS-DOS quickly moved away from this. What Microsoft sold was much polished over the original QDOS and CP/M OS's. They quickly improved the disk structure, FAT12 and FAT16 are different enough from the original CP/M disk structure. What they all STILL have in common is the use of the 0XE5 IBM uninitialized data marker in the FAT to show available space. This was a quick and dirty hack that allowed a freshly formated diskette to be used without having to initialize a directory structure on it.
First paragraph of wikipedia entry nicely sums up why this would be the case ... that is, it was a clone that was ported to run on a different (albiet VERY similar) instruction set, a different file system and obviously different hardware support.
You'd think after that either:
- not much of the original code with survive IF it was copied and then adapted
- it was probably easier to copy the functionality and write from ground-up which is what this article implies
MS-DOS was a renamed form of 86-DOS – informally known as the Quick-and-Dirty Operating System or Q-DOS – owned by Seattle Computer Products, written by Tim Paterson.
Microsoft needed an operating system for the then-new Intel 8086 but it had none available, so it bought 86-DOS for $75,000 and licensed it as its own then released a version of it as MS-DOS 1.0. Development started in 1981, and MS-DOS 1.0 was released with the IBM PC in 1982.
86-DOS, in turn, was a clone of Digital Research's CP/M for 8080/Z80 processors ported to run on 8086 processors and with two notable differences compared to CP/M, an improved disk sector buffering logic and the introduction of FAT12 instead of the CP/M filesystem
Those accusations still sound like sour grapes from Gary Kildall. The Microsoft - IBM deal was genius. Gary sounds upset he did not have the foresight to make it happen. He had his chance. Heck, MS even suggested that IBM talk to Gary and the CPM guys when they were looking for an operating system. But, Gary refused to play ball. Too bad.
So, Microsoft stepped up to the plate. They bought QDOS, worked with it and wrote MS-DOS. Sure, it was not an extraordinary operating system. But it wasn't terrible, and it worked like CP/M in a lot of ways because MS certainly took ideas from CP/M. That's perfectly OK (maybe not these days, software patents etc...) They were giving IBM and their customers what they wanted when Gary and Digital Research decided not to. That's the genius of Microsoft. Realizing the spectacular deal to be had and standing up to IBM to sign an agreement that would make them the biggest software company ever; keeping ownership of their software, regardless of how much big blue pushed them around. Sorry Gary, you missed out.
Lastly, I doubt the young Bill Gates would hypocritically allow his company to stoop to coping code after he wrote this and sent it to many of his future customers:
The system calls and lots of the design are clearly cloned. Anyone who used both CP/M and MS-DOS back in the day and who dabbled in assembly language programming on both would be able to spot it.
If the software industry had been as rife with patents (both functional and design) and other litigation tools back then as it is today, Microsoft wouldn't have gotten away with this particular way of copying.
(Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Where did this idea ever come from? "Everybody knows" that Gates bought QDOS from Kildall and nobody ever claimed that QDOS was a "copy of CP/M," not even Kildall himself. What was in dispute was whether Kildall was literally out to lunch or flying, or whatever, brushing off the meeting and selling a license for what turned out to be a pittance. That's the legend anyway, but he's not here on this planet anymore to defend himself.
FFS. Want to know where DOS came from? Just read Tim Patterson's blog. http://dosmandrivel.blogspot.com/
He discusses the design differences between the two and why he did what he did.
And if you're really curious and need to feed the inner nerd, go have a look at the CP/M source code.
http://www.cpm.z80.de/source.html
--
BMO
Gate's bought the DOS operating system and sold IBM a License. He didn't sell them the damn code.
Because of this, I have to wonder why everyone is suprised that MS Wants you to License Windows instead of buying it.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Back in the day I had more than one machine I'd built (either 8080 or Z80 based) that ran CP/M, and I even wrote software (in C and in assembly language) to run under CP/M. MS-DOS only bore a superficial resemblance to CP/M, in that there are certain elements to a command-line OS that you really can't easily get around.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Imagine that in the 70s software patents were as they are now... we would not be having this discussion.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
The fact remains that he did die conveniently in a plane crash just after failing to come to terms with MS.
Not true.
On July 8, 1994, Kildall fell at a Monterey, California, biker bar and hit his head. The exact circumstances of the injury remain unclear; however, he had suffered problems with alcoholism in his later years. Various sources have claimed he fell from a chair, fell down steps, or was assaulted because he walked in to the Franklin Street Bar & Grill wearing Harley-Davidson leathers. He checked in and out of the hospital twice, and died three days later at the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula. The coroner's report identified the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head. There was also evidence that he had experienced a heart attack, but an autopsy did not conclusively determine the cause of death.
Gary Kildall
Concurrent CP/M 3.1 and later, and single-user CP/M-86 with BDOS 3.3 and later (including DOS Plus), allow CP/M programs to access DOS-formatted discs via conventional BDOS calls, emulating (as far as possible) the behaviour of a normal CP/M filesystem. The behaviour is probably a good starting point for anyone writing a CP/M emulator which uses a hierarchical or non-CP/M filesystem.
The FAT filesystem in 16-bit CP/M-86
To me this says that the original or "normal" CP/M file system was not FAT.
Speaking conservatively, Bill Gates had access to IBM through his mother's business connections. Gary Kildall did not. Can we really claim to live in a meritocracy when the difference between billions and obscurity is who you were born to?
Moreover, can we agree that both physical strength and mental acuity begin as genetic traits? If we condemn a strong man for taking advantage of a weaker one, is that any different than a smart man taking advantage of a slower one? As a father, I don't allow my older son to force his little brother to eat a bug. By the same taken, I don't approve of my older daughter tricking her little brother into eating that same bug.
Hmm, it's almost like we have a moral and ethical obligation to be fair in our business dealings...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
From a WSJ review of Paul Allen's biography:
Past histories of Microsoft have said Mr. Allen's departure from the company was sparked by his first brush with cancer in 1982, when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.
In that year, Mr. Allen says he eavesdropped on a discussion in the Microsoft offices in Bellevue, Wash., between Mr. Gates and Steve Ballmer, now the company's CEO, in which he heard the two men talking about Mr. Allen's recent lack of productivity and how they might dilute his equity in the company by issuing options to themselves and other shareholders. Mr. Allen said he burst into the room and confronted Messrs. Gates and Ballmer, both of whom later apologized to him and backed down from their plan.
"I had helped start the company and was still an active member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and my colleague were scheming to rip me off," he says in the book. "It was mercenary opportunism, plain and simple."
.
A spokesman for Microsoft said Mr. Ballmer had no comment.
Earlier efforts by Mr. Gates to whittle down his partner's stake in Microsoft were successful though, according to Mr. Allen.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
How did I get screwed?
Did you have equal and fair access to the market without being an employee? Would the market have given both you and your employer a fair opportunity to sell that program, or can you not even get your foot in the door until you have capitulated and joined your employer's team?
Consider a real case from history. You're a farmer. Your produce is worth a great deal of money in the city. Knowing that the cities have need of food, you and the other farmers and people from the city paid taxes to a government to build the necessary infrastructure to keep our society going.
Now, railroad engineers need to eat too, and no one is saying the railroads shouln't get a fair cut. Unfortunately, the owners of the railroad somehow find their way into sweetheart deals with the government, and then form cartels with the distributors.
Suddenly, your corn, which would sell for $10/bushel in a fair and free market, is facing offers of 50 cents a bushel. Your choice is either take the 50 cents and pray you survive the winter, or let your corn rot at the depot and watch the bank forclose on your farm. Oddly enough, your buddy in the city says corn prices remain ridiculously high there no matter what happens at your end. The savings are definitely not getting passed on to him, since prices are always set at "what the market will bear," and not "what it cost to produce." Indeed, the difference between price and production cost is known as "profit," which the railroads say is their entire purpose in life.
Funny, you thought the entire purpose of the railroads was to move your corn to the cities so people don't starve.
Are you beginning to see how it's entirely possible to steal from people in an entirely legal, though not ethical, fashion?
One last footnote from our friends the psych majors. Apparently there is an aberration in human psychology that can produce monsters of varying degrees known as sociopaths. Sociopaths are people born without empathy or the ability to consider any other wants and needs other than their own. To these people, if it's legal, and therefore free from consequence, then they find it perfectly acceptable. They're UNABLE to consider questions of morality, fairness and ethics, because they literally cannot acknowledge the existence of anyone else in the world by themselves.
Two last things they note. One, sociopathy is definitely a pathology because they have found cases where physical brain damage causes the pathology to develop, and Two, in various surveys they've done, it seems we have a massive concentration of them among our captains of industry. Apparently, being willing to do ANYTHING for money is a behavior that is rewarded in business, while people who have moral reservations frequently find their careers stymied.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
More interesting the is the tale of how Windows 3.11 did the DOS version check to determine if it was compatible, back around 1992 or so. I recall reading an analysis of how Windows managed to throw a nasty message if DR DOS was used instead of DOS. Apparently the Windows code was actually encrypted or something to obscure the hoops they were jumping through so that Microsoft could destroy DR DOS.
Insider trading isn't "considered" illegal, it IS illegal - there is a law against it. It is illegal because that is the rule for being a publicly traded corporation - everyone gets info affecting the price of the stock at the same time. If that were not the case, people inside the company could profit at the expense of the other shareholders.
None of that has anything to do with private dealings. In fact, it is likely that Gates was under an NDA and could not say anything about the IBM deal, as IBM had not yet announced the PC. Divulging the IBM deal could not only have insider information ramifications, but remember that at the time IBM was under a consent decree that prohibited them from 'pre-announcing' anything.
If that were not the case, people inside the company could profit at the expense of the other shareholders.
Sure. Now why do we think that's wrong? What's the problem with allowing people inside the company to take advantage of the outsiders.? Couldn't the outsiders also get jobs within the company if they chose? Why is the asymmetric information considered a problem?
You're about to come back to me with some variation of the idea of fiduciary duty, which is simply restating the question. Why would they have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders? Why do we care if one group of people with superior information take advantage of another group of people? After all, anyone could get a job at the company. Anyone could -- in theory -- also become privy to the inside information. Why do we protect the shareholders from the reality of the market? What's the problem with asymmetric information in a capitalist market, and why do we feel the market distortions they cause to be evil?
When you get that answer, apply the principal to private dealings. Johnny Depp plays an evil man in "The Ninth Gate," a rare book dealer who visits bereaved families and buys rare books from the estate before the family realizes how valuable the books they sold are. The audience considers this to be evil behavior, and it sets up the moral corruption that a demon takes advantage of later in the script.
Why would we think those book sales are evil? After all, Depp is not doing aything illegal. He doesn't lie to them. He merely says "I can offer you this much for this book," and offers to get back to them later with offers on other books. Why do you think the audience boos and hisses at this behavior?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
We came up with the concept of a trust and passed laws against them (Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 1890) because we felt the behavior we were seeing, while not illegal in 1889, was wrong and should be prohibited. Enforcing the act had to wait for more than a decade until Roosevelt could get a court system that would act against the corporate interests. Indeed, the first application of the Act was to break Unions, not the trusts they were targeting.
There were no underhanded dealings going on.
OK, if you look up the definition and etymology of the word "underhanded," it means "something hidden" and "marked by secrecy." Literally, a hand under a table or cloak acting in a way not visible to all. This deal, where Gates had a hidden, secret agreement with IBM that Gary Kildall knew nothing about, was the walking definition of "underhanded."
Note "underhanded" does not necessarily mean "illegal," and what scares me to death are the number of people in this thread who seem to conflate the words "legal" and "ethical." Forclosing on a 98-year-old widow might be legal, but it's not ethical. Taking in foster kids and then giving them just enough to get by so you can pocket the government stipend might be legal, but it's not ethical.
The country-western singers have always argued that some men wear a mask when they rob, while other men wear a suit. They're not wrong.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Gates, at the time, did NOT know how much DOS was going to be worth
OK, good, there's our problem and the source of our confusion. People have roundly condemned this deal because Gates knew EXACTLY how much DOS was going to be worth, down to the last dollar. What people have found so morally objectionable is that Gates already had the deal with IBM lined up by virtue of his mother's influence, and that he low-balled Kildall when Kildall did not know the entire story. Gates didn't look at Kildall's work and think, "Hmm, I bet I could sell this to someone," buy the program, take the risk, and then find a customer. People condemn this deal because Gates gave Kildall a haircut when there was NO risk, and by taking Kildall for a ride he would never have agreed to had everything been done aboveboard.
People pair this story with the Woz's "Breakout" story, where Steve Jobs got Wozniak to work four days straight to finish "Breakout," without telling him that Atari was offering a $5,000 bonus. Woz finished the work, Steve pocketed the money.
Neither story shows Gates or Jobs in a flattering light, and sometimes "being a sharp businessman" is just code for being a lousy human being.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
"MS will pay SCP $10,000 upon signing of this agreement Payment of the initial fee described in Paragaph 2(c), above and royalties called for under this Agreement shall be due within 45 days of the date MS invoices their customer for the product for which the initial fee or royalty is due" link
AccountKiller
Gates' story is that Kildall "went flying" instead of meeting with IBM, and thus missed out on the opportunity due to sloth.
Kildall's story is that Gates ripped him off.
Hmm, truth is neither of us were in the room that day. We're left to decipher what happened in the context of history. Which story makes more sense? Was Gary Kildall a lazy, shiftless screw-up like Gates says? Have we ever seen other instances where Gates acted in a less-than-ethical manner? Which story fits better?
BTW, Apple had made the future clear. IBM's Boca Raton project was going to be massively disruptive, which is why they had to run it from relative secrecy. If anyone from the mainframe side had heard about what was going on down in the Florida swamps, there would have been open civil war within the company.
When Apple ran that full-page ad welcoming IBM to the market, the pundits said it was like the Christians welcoming the lions to the arena. The pundits were, for once, right. I was around at the time, and believe me, the IBM PC was long expected and about as risky a business proposition -- apart from the mainframe side that was about to get reamed -- as the only lemonade franchise in the desert.
We had all been expecting the IBM PC for a long, long time. It was the "iPhone/JesusPhone" of it's day. Personally, the only way I see Gary Kildall blowing off IBM and then selling out to Gates for a pittance is if Kildall had been non compos mentis at the time due to a massive infusion of drugs or severe head injury.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Gates not only forsaw the success of the IBM PC
I was there. EVERYONE foresaw the success of the IBM PC. No one ever got fired for buying IBM, remember? The IBM PC was long expected and highly anticipated. It was the closest thing to a sure bet as you ever get. The controversy wasn't over if the PC would be successful-- Apple had already demonstrated it was -- but over how much of IBM's mainframe business would be cannibalized by its introduction. When Apple took out a full-page ad welcoming IBM to the market, he pundits laughed, saying it was like the Christians welcoming the lions, and for once the pundits were right.
The success, the clones, all of it didn't exactly take the Amazing Kreskin to foresee. It was pretty much common knowledge. You have to understand how dominant IBM was at the time. It had more control over the computing market in its day than Microsoft ever dreamed of. Bill's Mom had intimate inside knowledge of the company.
Not only was none of this a dice roll, there weren't even dice on the board.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."