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Articles from LinuxConArticles from LinuxConPosted Aug 19, 2011 16:08 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648)In reply to: Articles from LinuxCon by imgx64 Parent article: Articles from LinuxCon
In the 13 years I've dabbled with Linux, the one thing I've noticed most is that the entire Linux Community1 has never tried to compete with/against anyone. Not Microsoft Windows, not Apple OS X, not *BSD, not Solaris, ... Granted, there was some stated goal of "World Domination" (did Linus say this himself?), but I sensed some facetiousness in that remark. This is a Good Thing™, as it keeps the development teams involved focused on creating the best operating system kernel there is, instead of trying too hard to match what the "other guys" are doing2. I strongly suspect that everyone in this community is well aware of the existence of the BSDs, and even acknowledge a debt to their precedence3, but, in a discussion of what the World would be like without Linux, it just doesn't seem fair to assume that only the BSDs would have prevailed. If Linux hadn't happened, might we have a GPL'ed "FOOnix"? ;-) 1 I'm using the word "Community" in the broadest sense possible, i.e. Kernel development, distros, corporations using Linux, end users, etc. 2 As I see it, this has been Microsoft's strategy for 27 years now. Anyone seen the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley? 3 I believe Linus' original goal was a "UNIX-like operating system capable of running on commodity desktop hardware [of the day]" (or similar). While he did mention BSD, I don't recall any of the BSDs being able to run on 386-era hardware back then (correct me if I'm wrong). Of course, licensing is a whole other discussion...
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Articles from LinuxCon Posted Aug 19, 2011 18:46 UTC (Fri) by imgx64 (guest, #78590) [Link]
> If Linux hadn't happened, might we have a GPL'ed "FOOnix"? ;-)
Or perhaps the Hurd wouldn't have stagnated.
Articles from LinuxCon Posted Aug 19, 2011 22:49 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]
Hurd was already stagnating when Linus started writing his "strictly a hobby" kernel in 1991. They got caught up in a bout of perfectionism about the design of the kernel, trying to make it "the best kernel ever" and "the wave of the future", as microkernels were thought to be at the time. It didn't help that they changed underlying microkernels several times. So, I don't think that the lack of Linux would have helped the Hurd effort at all.
Articles from LinuxCon Posted Aug 20, 2011 20:24 UTC (Sat) by rfontana (subscriber, #52677) [Link] 386BSD (substantial precursor to the later free BSD projects) was a known free software project around the time Linus started with Linux, but was vaporware until early 1992, by which time Linux already had an active and rapidly growing contributor/user comunity. For a while the two projects seemed to have borrowed code from one another, though Linux benefited more for licensing reasons (note: view that BSD advertising clause was GPL-incompatible didn't arise till some time later). 386BSD was advanced in some ways (particularly networking) but for the most part Linux was technically superior, had a huge head start and had the momentum.386BSD probably suffered somewhat from FUD surrounding the USL v. BSDi lawsuit but not clear that it played a major factor in the relative success of Linux.
Articles from LinuxCon Posted Aug 20, 2011 20:59 UTC (Sat) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] The "World domination. Fast." quip is Linus', in answer to a question. Tongue firmly in cheek, not to be taken seriously at all in 1995. Now things are quite different, Linux is taking the mobile space by storm after (almost) taking over the server room.
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