Thomas,

On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 10:30:30 -0800, Thomas Garson wrote:

she confirmed that NT is NOT a spin off of the OS/2 project, despite some rumors to the contrary. She worked directly with the team of ex DEC employees who wrote it, from the ground up, as a "clean room" knock off of the DEC operating system, which they had just completed prior to departing DEC.

That's a pretty mucky sort of "clean room"!  I think if DEC had had the money and the will, they could have clobbered MS for breach of copyright.  I think the usual definition of a clean room development is that the participants have no prior knowledge of the "other" software, let alone having developed it.