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Ask HN: Does anyone know of the whereabouts of the source code of FlexOS/386?

112 points by andrewstuart ↗ HN
My goal is to get FlexOS open sourced. - Does anyone know of a copy of the source code? I contacted the designer and author of much of FlexOS and he does not know where the source code is.I think it would be fun to see if FlexOS/386 can be brought back to life.

FlexOS was a powerful and innovative operating system from Digital Research, the early 1990's.

Here is a Byte Magazine review of it from back then: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bootrino/vintage_software/master/1991_01_BYTE_FLEXOSS_MUSCLE.pdf

Here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexOS

Maybe someone at WindRiver knows where the source code of FlexOS is? The wikipedia article above says:

>>>>When Novell decided to abandon further development of the various Digital Research operating systems such as Multiuser DOS (a successor to Concurrent DOS) and Novell DOS (a successor to DR DOS), they sold FlexOS off to the Santa Clara, California-based Integrated Systems, Inc. (ISI) for US$3 million in July 1994.[22] The deal comprised a direct payment of half this sum as well as shares representing 2% of the company. The company already had pSOS+, another modular real-time multitasking operating system for embedded systems, but they continued to maintain FlexOS as well.[22] FlexOS version 2.33 was current as of May 1998 and with FlexOS 2.34 to be released soon after with added support for faster CPUs, 64 MB of memory, EIDE and ATAPI CDROM drives.

>>>>Integrated Systems was bought by their competitor Wind River Systems in February 2000.

35 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 80.7 ms ] thread
yjftsjthsd-h
> My goal is to get FlexOS open sourced. - Does anyone know of a copy of the source code

That's not enough; you need to find who owns the copyright.

andrewstuart
True enough - that would be step two after finding the source code.
yjftsjthsd-h
That seems backwards IMO; you need their permission, so there's no point in finding the code if you can't get permission, and the copyright holder is more likely than almost anyone else to know where to get the source anyways.
zxcvbn4038
You can do two things at once! Anyone who has the code probably has a lead on the current IP owner if any.
MaulingMonkey
There's no point getting permission - via a potentially involved negotiation and lawyers and contracts - if you can't even find the code to fulfill that contract with.

In the muddle of defunct companies, mergers, lapsed contracts, etc. - figuring out who actually owns the copyright can be a bit muddled. An engineer who may have squirreled away a copy - or who knows where such a copy might be squirreled away - is more likely than almost anyone else to know what company might own the copyright, and possible points of contact within that company to contact to even try to begin negotiation, even if they no longer work for the company.

mekoka
Given two absolute prerequisites, start with what's easiest/quicker. To me asking around for the source seems to be a pretty low hanging fruit.
mmastrac
The quickest way to figure out the IP owner is by putting the code on GitHub and waiting for a DMCA.

(Kidding .. well, half kidding)

kingcharles
Let them find you. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. It's likely no-one gives a fuck about the copyright any longer, so it's unlikely to have anyone knocking on the door. Whoever owns the IP probably doesn't even know they own it.
emmelaich
Easier to get forgiveness than permission.

I really really don't think the copyright owner would care.

jjgreen
Try saying that to someone who's chips you've taken at closing time in Glasgow city-centre on a Saturday night.
andrewstuart
Does anyone here on HN know someone at WindRiver who might know more about FlexOS?
cpach
I might have a connection. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
mikewarot
Have you contacted Wind River Systems about it yet? You really need permission from them to make this happen.
phkahler
>> Have you contacted Wind River Systems about it yet? You really need permission from them to make this happen.

If they own the copyright, then that's the first thing to do. Not because permission is more important, but because it's more likely to lead to "we don't even have the source any more, let us know if you find it" than if you approach them having a copy yourself already. I think your position will be stronger if you discover they don't even have a copy. If they do, then you don't need to find a copy yourself - they can provide it if they give you permission to do what you want.

mikewarot
Copyright law is involved, they have it, you don't. If they say no, the project is dead.
jll29
No, but it means you will need to wait: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html
rvnx
If the copyright holder has lost the source-code, wouldn't they just say no anyway ? Because if the copyright holder has lost the original source-code, how can they prove that there is a copyright infringement ? A lawyer would probably advise to just say no to stay on the safe side :/
gkop
Hypothetically, they could prove infringement by presenting a hash or a trusted timestamp of the source-code.

But maybe they’ll be lucky and the code will have intact copyright headers!

kazinator
They have nothing: they lost the code. So no hashes or copyright headers.

If you find the source somewhere, and nobody else does, you're the only posssessor of the copyright headers, and can scrub them from any copy you show to anyone else.

mikewarot
It would be interesting to see that legal theory tested in court.
phkahler
Sure, they hold the copyright. What I question is weather they have the code. Both are needed to do anything with it. If they dont have the code its beneficial to find that out - then if/when someone finds a copy you've got half of what's needed, and that's bargaining power.

This is all rather petty for some obsolete software, but never underestimate a company response to interest in something they thought had no value.

jonjon10002
Wind River just got bought by Aptiv, like literally a week ago.
jonjon10002
It's also worth noting that Wind River purchased Integrated Systems almost entirely so they could kill off pSOS and drive customers to using their competing VxWorks RTOS. I wouldn't doubt if FlexOS is in a similar situation.

It's very likely if you talked to someone at Wind River, they would say "why would you want to release FlexOS for free when you could license VxWorks for a large price instead?"

bragr
Just my two cents: but this seems like an extremely uphill battle without an internal champion. I'd guess with how old this is and how many hands it has passed through, the legal team would struggle to put together the chain of agreements and paperwork to prove they have the sufficient rights to open source it. I don't seem them touching this without doing that first which makes it seem pretty much like a non-starter. I'd focus on trying to track down potential high ranking champions if you want to have any shot.
andrewstuart
Step one is to find someone who even knows that the source code still exists - it may well be lost forever.

If someone turns up saying "yes I have a copy of FlexOS/386" then I can take next steps which is to work out who to talk to about open sourcing it.

In my opinion alot of senior tech people like CTO's and CEO's are interested in things like computer history and the software community.

A company that open sources its defunct software at the request of the community is showing itself to be a good corporate citizen - they get to do a press release that might catch the attention of some good engineers who consider taking a job with them. Anything's possible.

Worst case is someone finds the software and the company that owns it says "no" - nothing ventured, nothing lost.

dfawcus
The distribution came in two parts when I worked with it:

APT - The binaries and SDK. SBK - The drivers (source code), .obj and .lib files for the system.

There was significant driver source code in the latter, and the object files had (codeview) debug symbols included. It is possible to reverse engineer the latter files in to something approximating the C source, then rebuild individual "Resource Managers" - e.g. the PIPE/SM RM.

I know one could probably find the APT & SBK for 2.2, 2.34 (and 2.4 Beta), since a company I used to work for had them, along with the File System (Disk resource manager) source. The 2.4 Beta was something Novell distributed shortly before they handed the system off to the next owner.

The other parts of the system are not too complex, and could probably be reverse engineered from the objects with say 1 man year's work.

Now having rights / permission to do so, and redistribute the result is a different matter.

pm215
Yes; if you read the introduction to the version of the "Lions Book" which was republished in the 1990s with the 6th Edition UNIX source code, you can see that the only reason it happened was that the executives in charge of the company who owned the UNIX copyrights/trademarks at the time (SCO before they went evil) were enthusiastic about the project and pushed it through the legal department, and that similarly Dennis Ritchie had acted as the internal champion within AT&T to get the OK from their lawyers.
jacquesm
I've tried something similar for another operating system and it did not work out. Just to get an answer from the rights holders was a real challenge. I wish you much good luck. There ought to be some kind of software abandonment law to allow people to salvage software that is no longer in maintenance or that can't be bought.
rzzzt
WinWorld has DOS Plus and Concurrent DOS from DR, maybe you could ask the maintainers or forum dwellers there.

I found exactly one post on the forum, listing various finds from eBay, that says "Digital Research - FlexOS 386 System Builder's Kit, Release 1.42, 1988 - 5 Box"; unfortunately the linked item is gone by now: https://forum.winworldpc.com/discussion/comment/164410#Comme...

mrlonglong
Might I suggest decompiling or disassembling the binaries to generate the sources. It's very time consuming but might be the only way to recover the sources if they are indeed lost.

It's been done in the past to recover lost sources.

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kochbeck
I notice IBM was a major licensee. If you can figure out which product it was used in, the successor to that division (since I suspect it was something that’s now dead like PSP or mass storage) almost certainly has a clean copy of the source that’s been indexed on a mainframe tape wherever that program group’s library is now archived. It was a massive PITA to go on that sort of hunt when we HAD 3270s on our desks, so I can’t imagine what kind of untoward favors you’d have to offer IT to find it now. But unless decades of archival policies were rolled back, is there somewhere. Look for a product they sold to the federal government. They’re probably still supporting it.
Sunspark
Why do you want the source code open sourced?

This product was last released 23 years ago. What would you gain today from having access to the source code?

snvzz
Some of us care about preserving computer history.
dfawcus
I had the impression that Intel owned the assets now.

While the current / last version would be interesting, it would also be useful to have the source for at least one old version - that before it was rebranded FlexOS and was still Concurrent DOS 286.

Specifically so that code for their 286 based DOS VM could be inspected.

Or possibly the version corresponding to the manuals available on BitSavers, as that appears to still have the code present.

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/digitalResearch/flexos/