19 Jan
2023
19 Jan
'23
11:02 p.m.
On Thu, 19 Jan 2023, Dan Cross wrote:
There were also a lot of gatekeepers. Perhaps not so
much in CSRG, but
certainly in the next tier out: if you weren't part of the in-crowd at
USENIX and on USENET, it was hard to contribute. Ted has referred to
this as kowtowing to the "Gods of BSD." He wasn't wrong, though I
think the dynamic has changed substantially in recent years.
I feel like Bill Jolitz was a sort of Prometheus, with Jolix bringing BSD
to the masses, when those who were Above®™© didn't take the 386 and
commodity hardware seriously.
Jolix was a game-changer - though I feel it was like Banquo in the
Scottish play®™© - "thou shalt get (beget) kings, though thou be none".
Its descendants (especially FreeBSD and OpenBSD) have been more
influential in the main than it was.
-uso.