Linux wasn’t bootstrapped from Minix in any meaningful way though, even if it was inspiration (and that would be quite a claim to make given Minix is a microkernel design and linux is a monolith), and Andrew Tannenbaum weighed in on that at the time. Further, it wasn’t just lack of attribution - specific allegations of copying were made as well as appeals to incredulity - one person could never write an OS! It must all be stolen!
He was flat out wrong and he put his efforts into spreading FUD about it while taking money from Microsoft, all while the SCO stuff was going on.
It’s very hard to see his efforts as anything other than paid-for propaganda.
Agreed. This seems especially apparent in light of the "Torvalds / Tannenbaum Debate"[1] that occurred back in the early days of Linux. It's not like Andrew Tannenbaum came out and said "Hey kid you stole my code." No, instead he came out and said "This OS of yours is obsolete and a step back into the 1970's" (paraphrased slightly).
He was flat out wrong and he put his efforts into spreading FUD about it while taking money from Microsoft, all while the SCO stuff was going on.
It’s very hard to see his efforts as anything other than paid-for propaganda.