From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: clemc@ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2018 16:24:26 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Why BSD didn't catch on more, and Linux did In-Reply-To: References: <20180206230254.GB1977@thunk.org> <20180207151347.GA29650@thunk.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 2:21 PM, Dan Cross wrote: > > > I wonder why the unchallenged existence of Unix clones like COHERENT and > Minix wasn't enough to kill the trade secret argument before it even got > out of the gate. > It was a V7 clone (like Minix). I've forgotten but I thought it originally ran on 286 (again like Minix). ​But, ​ I'm not sure why it was not as popular. Maybe the difference was that it was a V7 clone and closed source as it were ​, while ​ Minix was a tad cheaper and you got the sources. ​ Also it (again like Minix) was floppy based. By that time AT&T UNIX or BSD Unix is running on 'JAWS' [just another workstation] those systems tended to have disks in them and UNIX really need one in practice. As Ted points out and I agree (as pointed out by Jolitiz in his DDJ articles, I was partly responsible for the original BSD/386 hard disk driver)​, the Linux support for ST506 and ESDI disks was very early and actually pretty stable in the earliest versions of Linux. In fact, because I was familiar ​with the HD stuff from BSD/386 it was one the first things I had personally checked out and was pleased to see was solid.​ > > Clem, is your paper online somewhere? > ​Not yet - I'll send out an URL when the conference papers all go on line, but if you privately send me a message I'll send you a PDF. Note, a couple of you have an earlier (near final) draft, so send me a note if you want the printed one. The differences are minor-> some clarification/some small rewording to dealing with English colloquialisms that were not understood by the French. ​ ᐧ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: