Re: Microsoft's OS competitors

On Wed, 23 Apr 1997, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> asked:
>
> Why haven't any potential Microsoft competitors reverse-engineered
> its operating system, copied the necessary functional components,
> and built a competing "Windows-compatible" operating system?

and ultimately answered his own question:  

> 4. Because it's hard. [Well, yeah, but the potential payoff is pretty
> big too].

Bingo.

> I'm curious what people think. Has this been done, and I just haven't
> heard about it?

Yes, twice. Two projects that are still ongoing are Wine (which stands for "WINdows Emulator" or "Wine Is Not an Emulator" -- your preference) for Linux (and perhaps other unices running X window) and Wabi, which I think is by Sun Microsystems.

I know naught about Wabi. Wine is reportedly 80-90% complete, with the remaining 10% expected to take the remaining 90% of the time. I don't know how long it's been in development, but I first encountered discussions of it at least three years ago.

--
Terry Carroll       | "The invention provides means for continuously
Santa Clara, CA     | trapping sparrows and supplying a cat and 
carroll[_at_]tjc.com     | neighborhood cats with a supply of sparrows."
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