Did MS steal DOS code?

[Leisher]

200K potential reward for proving it.

100K for proving it, another 100k for finding a secret copyright print command.

This is being offered by a guy who has analyzed the code twice and found no proof of stolen code. By the way, MS is giving him the code, so I assume this won't be leading to lawsuits?

[Malcolm]

Still, he found no signs that Microsoft copied the source code from CP/M. He did, however, find at least 22 system calls — the types of actions that send/receive text from a printer, phone, hard disk, etc. — that had the same function (and function number) as the CP/M code.

It’s not enough to prove the code was copied, but it’s intriguing, and has Zeidman offering up $200,000 (USD) in prize money to anyone that can prove the connection. $100,000 for anyone who cause use “accepted forensic techniques” to prove MS-DOS was copied and another $100,000 for anyone that can find the Kildall copyright function — a rumored MS-DOS inclusion that can be called upon to print out a copyright notice in CP/M creator Gary Kildall’s name.

Wtf? You're saying they copied some logic from the other OS. The similarity of the functions, even down to the numbers, isn't that impressive when you consider they only include a mere 22 system calls out of fuck knows how many. At best, you can say they ripped off the spirit of CP/M but not the letter (or in this case, ASCII character) of it.

Secondly, because I doubt they did a straight copy-paste of the code and most likely selectively lifted and imitated portions, there's no chance to find the mythical copyright print function.

Troll.