on Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 09:53:35PM -0500, Jim Choate (ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com) wrote:
This entire view misses the(!) one most important component of Unix's (and Linux's) success, they were first.
Not hardly. I wasn't keeping notes when K&R were designing their gaming platform, but history seems to recall OS/360, Multics, TICO, ITS, VMS. A bit of quick Googling suggests the PDP-7 had its own native operating system (the PDP-11 certainly did), certainly more than what a couple of guys hanging around a broom closet could hammer out in a few days. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Ken Olsen was selling VAXs running VMS and complaining bitterly about snake oil (I guess there's a bunch of snakes out there). However, to quote someone's response to Tim May in this list recently, I'm just one of the dilettants posting here out of ignorance for some free research on the part of the rest of you. Someone who was around at the time is going to have a better answer than me. When Linus started Linux, he was bootstrapping with Minix, and trying to get around its limitations. For PC Unix, there was alread Xenix and one or more of the very forgettably named SCO products (not Xenix). The Jolitzesi were wresting BSD from Berkeley. FSF had been working on the HURD since 1983 (originally as TRIX), in fits and starts. By the time Larry McVoy wrote "The Sourceware Operating System Proposal" in 1993, it still wasn't clear whether or not FreeBSD or Linux was the cart to hitch the horse to. http://www.redhat.com/knowledgebase/otherwhitepapers/whitepaper_freeunix.htm... The ultimate success of Linux doesn't have a single factor -- it meets most of the marks set in the exerpt I posted from K&P, I'd argue that licensing played a role, as did the fact it wasn't encumbered by the AT&T/UCB lawsuits, and most people give Linus himself strong credits for his project management skills and personality. Topics covered extensively elsewhere. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html