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1997 Fools: SUN PRESS RELEASE
From: Shaggy <zjgordon@iupui.edu> Subject: SUN PRESS RELEASE To: Da List <linux-newbie@vger.rutgers.edu> (C) 1997 Reuters FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Mountain View CA. At a early morning press conference at its coroporate headquarters at Mountain View, California, Sun Microsystems announced that it has hired Linus Torvald's as Senior Development Manager for Sun Microsystems Solaris Operating system. In a recent press conference annoucing Mr. Torvald's joining Sun, Sun Chief Executive Officer, Scott McNealy, stated, "We're quite honored to be joined by the kernel programming legend that Linus is". The "kernel" is the heart of all UNIX operating systems. McNealy also stated that, "...in the spirit of Mr. Torvald's dedicated work on the free UNIX clone, Linux, we at Sun Microsystems have decided to release, in its entirety, the source code for our Solaris operating system and instead, copyright the Linux operating system". Sun also stated that the trademark "Linux" had been applied for with the United States Trademark Office. The previous and disputed copyright holder, William R. Della Croce, Jr. was unavailable for comment. Linux was originally created by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland. It soon became one of the most popular free UNIX variants, being freely redistributable and freely available on the Internet. The Linux operating system, though initially based on the Intel processor platform, it was eventually ported to the Motorola 68000 series, Apple Power Macintoshes and Sun Sparc series. Said McNealy, "So impressed were we with Linux's development on our Sparc and UltraSparc platforms, we decided it would be in the best interest of our user base to take advantage of the work that Linus and his Internet-wide team of developers accomplished...quite frankly, Linux outperformed our own product [Solaris]". The far-reaching effect of this news has yet to determined by both developers of Linux and end users. Because Linus Torvalds is not the sole developer of Linux, Sun announced that it was preparing "compensation" packages to all documented contributors to the Linux kernel that would possibly include Sun Microsystems stock and other offers. Sun also stated that until September 1, 1997, it would not activate new licensing costs for current users. License prices were not available a the press conference. Sun plans to market the product with the new name Solinux, keeping with the helio-centric naming convention adopted by Sun. A new development division has been formed by Sun solely for the further development of Solinux. CEO McNealy stated, "We are so dedicated to the continued development of Solinux that we are not using any of the development staff for our Solaris product to prevent 'code contamination'".
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