From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: angus@fairhaven.za.net (Angus Robinson) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2017 18:28:02 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS vs Linux In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think at one point Linus said that if he had known or if 386bsd was available he would not have started Linux (If I remember correctly) On 6 Jan 2017 05:57, "Dan Cross" wrote: > On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 12:08 PM, Clem Cole wrote: >> >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 11:17 AM, ron minnich > > >> wrote: >> >>> Larry, had Sun open sourced SunOS, as you fought so hard to make happen, >>> Linux might not have happened as it did. SunOS was really good. Chalk up >>> another win for ATT! >>> >> >> ​FWIW: I disagree​. For details look at my discussion of rewriting >> Linux in RUST >> >> on quora. But a quick point is this .... Linux original took off (and was >> successful) not because of GPL, but in spite of it and later the GPL would >> help it. But it was not the GPL per say that made Linux vs BSD vs SunOS et >> al. >> >> What made Linux happen was the BSDi/UCB vs AT&T case. At the time, a >> lot of hackers (myself included) thought the case was about *copyright*. >> It was not, it was about *trade secret* and the ideas around UNIX. * >> i.e.* folks like, we "mentally contaminated" with the AT&T Intellectual >> Property. >> >> When the case came, folks like me that were running 386BSD which would >> later begat FreeBSD et al, got scared. At that time, *BSD (and SunOS) >> were much farther along in the development and stability. But .... may of >> us hought Linux would insulate us from losing UNIX on cheap HW because >> their was not AT&T copyrighted code in it. Sadly, the truth is that if >> AT&T had won the case, *all UNIX-like systems* would have had to be >> removed from the market in the USA and EU [NATO-allies for sure]. >> >> That said, the fact the *BSD and Linux were in the wild, would have made >> it hard to enforce and at a "Free" (as in beer) price it may have been hard >> to make it stick. But that it was a misunderstanding of legal thing that >> made Linux "valuable" to us, not the implementation. >> >> If SunOS has been available, it would not have been any different. It >> would have been thought of based on the AT&T IP, but trade secret and >> original copyright. >> > > Yes, it seems in retrospect that USL v BSDi basically killed Unix (in the > sense that Linux is not a blood-relative of Unix). I remember someone > quipping towards the late 90s, "the Unix wars are over. Linux won." > > Perhaps an interesting area of speculation is, "what would the world have > looked like if USL v BSDi hadn't happened *and* SunOS was opened to the > world?" I think in that parallel universe, Linux wouldn't have made it > particularly far: absent the legal angle, what would the incentive had been > to work on something that was striving to basically be Unix, when really > good Unix was already available? > > Ah well. > > - Dan C. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: