Interesting question, the alternative OS would have had to have had a good leader and I am sure maybe RMS would have created a kernel after some time. 

Maybe somebody would have taken 386BSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD and made something completely different. 

I think another question would be, if Linux was never invented, what technologies would never have happened. For instance, a bunch of animation movies where made with Linux farms, Planes use Linux within their inbuilt entertainment systems, the list goes on (I think NASA uses linux on their ISS). How many people would be interested in technology/IT sector, how many companies would have started (ie: RedHat, Thwat,etc), What features/addons would not have been added to other operating systems (Windows tcp/ip)? Would docker even be a thing, hyper-v ?

I know one thing....... All the old technology would be alot more and schools would have alot more vunerabilites on their PC's.

 

On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 1:13 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat@kilonet.net> wrote:

https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/08/26/0051234/celebrating-the-28th-anniversary-of-the-linux-kernel

Leaving licensing and copyright issues out of this mental exercise, what
would we have now if it wasn't for Linux? Not what you'd WANT it to be,
although that can add to the discussion, but what WOULD it be?

I'm not asking as a proponent of Linux. If anything, I was dragged
kicking and screaming into the current day and have begrudgingly ceded
my server space to Linux.

But if not for Linux, would it be BSD? A System V variant? Or (the
horror) Windows NT?

I do understand that this has been discussed on the list before. I
think, however, it would make a good late-summer exercise. Or late
winter depending on where you are :)

art k.