Linux is 35 years old today and going strong. It is an amazing the journey that it has had.
35 years ago a Nordic programmer from Finland wrote a line on a mailing list which he was sure would not amount to much. Boy oh Boy was he wrong.
Wonder why BSD did not have the same journey? By all accounts it is a very capable OS.
Huzzah!
That mailing list entry sure is a doozy in hindsight, but there have been many like it that never went anywhere.
And yeah, I’ve sometimes wondered the same about BSD, but I guess it’s one of those momentum things. Linux is well supported by hardware manufacturers and more and more professional software is coming to it. BSD doesn’t really fill any need that Linux doesn’t cover for the average user. BSD was also hampered by licensing baggage from its System V legacy, which is a big reason why Linux started in the first place. If BSD had been open source at the time, who knows if it ever would’ve happened. It still used in servers and embedded systems, like PlayStation and Nintendo consoles.
I still run FreeBSD on one laptop, though. I really enjoy its small footprint. And it’s interesting to test out other System V variants as well, like OpenIndiana, Solaris and MacOS.
Before divestiture, AT&T was a Federally regulated monopoly. AT&T’s Bell Labs was the research and development division of AT&T. Bell Labs invented the diode, transistor, and the first crude Integrated Circuits and much more. On the software side, Bell Labs created Unix, and C among other things.
The thing about Federal Regulation is, if I remember correctly, AT&T could get patents for their inventions/creations, and etc. but they had to turn every thing over to the public for free.
So the University of California, Berkeley, plus other major universities, saw a free opportunity for their computer science divisions to play around with.
Thus the birth of Berkeley Software Distibution, or BSD.
Pudge
EDIT:
There have been arguments over the years that have said that Linus Torvalds’s kernel was simply a porting of the unix kernel to the x86 kernel.
we’re getting that [digital] age where stories like these seem like mythical creation stories borne from the muck. I’ve seen documentaries about the Bell/AT&T pioneer geeks, good women and men blustering forward with good humor in their adventure, being the lowest paid wing of the company. But they were connecting enough dots to keep these tech giants interested in pressing forward.
EDIT: I didn’t “quote” you twice nor post twice. I will leave this Discourse artifact as is with no edit.
I am thankful for the opportunity to have explored alternatives when it comes to computers and programming. Yes, Linux has been a breath of fresh air, and the world programming community should be congratulated for it’s development as an epic achievement.
Bill gates had an idea, but separate from the one that’s all about making money and capitalist monopolist domination, Linux has on the other hand has provided a level of ‘enlightenment’ that no capitalist or monopoly can provide us all. My hat is off to Linus Torvalds and all of the hard work he has provided for the Linux kernel and it’s development. Competing alternatives is a good example on how Capitalist monopolies can’t provide us all the answers we might want without demanding payment or holding us hostage for these competing ideas.
Thank you for the commitments and hard work of many people around the world for this truly magnificent endeavor.
Rich 