Dave Cutler developed what ultimately is NT while working for Digital Equipment Corporation. DEC wasn't interested in Dave's creation. Dave unethically and possibly illegally shopped it around. Microsoft was interested. Dave and his entire engineering team left DEC, and went to work for Microsoft, and actually, literally stole DEC's intellectual property and eventually released it as Windows NT. Yes, I am saying that Windows NT is the intellectual property of Digital Equipment Corporation, and Microsoft never paid DEC a red nickel for it. On a personal note, I am divided about Mr. Cutler. Windows NT might have been the best Windows ever, and NT itself isn't a terrible platform. What Microsoft did to it is unfortunate for users and administrators everywhere, but it essence, NT wasn't terrible. Cutler is an impressive developer... quite amazing... yet it sickens me that what he and Microsoft did was insanely unethical, and no one noticed. Microsoft's main flagship product was STOLEN, and no one noticed, and this is hardly ever acknowledged. comment is about 99.5% right on NT being stolen. I wasn?t at DECWest when this happened, but I worked there right out of college and talked with the old-timers. Dave Cutler was pissed that project Mica got canceled, so he went down the road (literally!) to Microsoft to sell what he?d been working on. Lawsuits were fired off once DECies saw how similar some of the kernel and subsystem design was when working on the DEC Alpha port of NT and reported it to their PHBs. Read some history for yourself here: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/07/30/readers-write-how-microsoft-got-windows-nt/ because while they may not have left DEC copyrights in the NT source, there were some line-for-line reproduction of VMS implementation!