Re: [TUHS] SunOS vs Linux

You remember correctly: 'If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened.' http://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html On Sun, Jan 8, 2017, at 08:28 AM, Angus Robinson wrote: >>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 11:17 AM, ron minnich <rminnich(a)gmail.com[1]> >>> 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[2] 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? > > > -- Kay Parker kayparker(a)mailite.com Links: 1. https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=rminnich@gma… 2. https://www.quora.com/Would-it-be-possible-advantageous-to-rewrite-the-Linu… -- http://www.fastmail.com - IMAP accessible web-mail