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Andy Tanenbaum wrote:

Better late than never. I finally got permission from Prentice Hall to change the MINIX license to the BSD license. The lawyers sort of sat on this for two years.

Anyway, the new license conditions are below. These are the same as for Berkeley UNIX. It seems to me better for the users than GPL since there is no requirement to provide source code. MINIX is much smaller than Linux and might well be suitable as the operating system for a watch, camera, or transistor radio. The manufacturer of, say, a watch might really not want to provide a CD-ROM with the source code with each watch or even a web site with the source code, as being too much trouble. The new MINIX license says you can distribute source if you want to, but you don't have to. At this point, for most intents and purposes, MINIX is effectively no different than being in the public domain. You can do whatever you want with it.

Sorry for the long delay. I had hoped this would happen earlier.

As I mentioned before, there might well be an interesting future for MINIX on very low-end embedded devices where tiny size is important. What is also important is that MINIX is fairly modular. If you don't need the file system, just remove it.

Andy Tanenbaum
ast@cs.vu.nl

------------------------ New MINIX license --------------------------------


        Copyright (c) 1987,1997, Prentice Hall
        All rights reserved.
 
        Redistribution and use of the MINIX operating system in source and
        binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided
        that the following conditions are met:
 
           * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
             notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 
           * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
             copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
             disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided
             with the distribution.
 
           * Neither the name of Prentice Hall nor the names of the software
             authors or contributors may be used to endorse or promote
             products derived from this software without specific prior
             written permission.
 
        THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS, AUTHORS, AND
        CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
        INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
        MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
        IN NO EVENT SHALL PRENTICE HALL OR ANY AUTHORS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
        LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
        CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
        SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR
        BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
        WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE
        OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE,
        EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

From: Andy Tanenbaum <ast@cs.vu.nl>
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: MINIX license change
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 12:16:47 GMT
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
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Message-ID: <8ckjjf$32f@cs.vu.nl>
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Summary: MINIX is now available under the BSD license
Keywords: license
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