If Linux Wasn't Open Source 282
ColourCure asks: "Maybe this has already been asked (definitely not an original thought), but how much of an impact do you think Linux would have made as a non-open source operating system? There's definitely more to open sourcing than being able to peek at the code. Would the open source movement even be that big without Linux backing it up? " Ah, I expect this to generate some controversy, but my personal feeling is that the time for Open Source has come. Linux just accelerated the time table.
Solaris (Score:4)
If Linux wasn't Open Source, it wouldn't be Linux. Period
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Um... (Score:2)
Linus wrote Linux because he wanted a free Unix for the PC. If he just distributed binaries instead of opening the source, anyone could have gotten a free Unix that would run on *his* machine, one cheap 386 in Finland. If they wanted more than that, they'd have to request features, or pay him, or something.
At which point they could go out and buy SunOS, or Xenix, or work on making BSD free, or hack Minix or something.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
non open-source world (Score:1)
Linux wouldn't be Linux if it weren't open source. (Score:4)
Linux and Open Source Complementary (Score:2)
Open Source is itself powerful enough now to stand on its own. That is for certain. But would it be where it is today without Linux? Perhaps not.
I'm very greatful for the both of them, and will continue my support as long as I can type.
The time has certainly come for Open Source.
Huh? Linux? (Score:2)
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I'd still use Linux (Score:2)
So from my perspective whether or not it is open source is irrevalent to me.
I think Open Source would be powerful without Linux because I think that open source programs would probably still have a very large home on linux. It is after all a UNIX and it seems to me as though the FSF has its roots in UNIX (yeah yeah I know GNU is not UNIX, but every flavor of UNIX had all the GNU development tools before windows and DOS got a copy, Mac still doesn't have a copy, so the roots are definetly UNIX).
Pretty much (and I know the guy that didn't know what a
Well those are my opinions but I seem to be less of an Open Source maniac like most linux people are, so I don't know if my opinions reflect what would really happen. I guess the answer to that depends on why it is OK for Quake and Unreal to be commercial software but when the little guy makes commercial software for Linux every jumps down his throat for not opening the code. Answer that question and decide which side of the hypocritical coin that Linux falls on (Quake or small software) and you'll have your answer.
The GNU still has the HURD (Score:1)
Jeremy
HURD (Score:1)
Dave
Re:Huh? Linux? (Score:2)
Who wants in on the pool? (Score:1)
Does this signify the advent of the "closed sourcing" of linux?
Any bets?
Re:The GNU still has the HURD (Score:1)
Yeah (Score:1)
Note: these are only my views and as stated by my age i have not been helping with opensource for all that long.
Would have gone the way of Minix... (Score:3)
My opinion is that Linux would have remained a obscure project, from some Linus guy somewhere in Europe. And that would be about it... maybe most of us would be using and hyping FreeBSD by now.
Just my two cents...
Probably wouldn't be where it is today (Score:1)
One of my favorite comments about open source was (I think) made by Eric Raymond. He said something to the effect of "Linux is not the end all of operating systems. There will come a time when it is no longer sufficient. However, when that time comes open source will have had such an impact, that the idea that its replacement could be proprietary will be considered absurd"
I agree completely. Linux is great, but things will change in ways that linux can't change, and we'll need another operating system built from scratch with the hindsite we've gained when it does become outdated. (No, I don't foresee that anytime soon). While Linux gets the credit, this is much more an "open-source movement" than a "Linux Movement".
Is it still free? (Score:1)
But what is a huge issue for most is the fact that Linux is free. If it weren't, I can't say it would be a much better choice than, say, some non-free BSD... and FreeBSD would definitely have a leg up on it. (Just like it does already! :)
The time for Open Source has definitely come. With or without Linux, it would have happened.
Others (Score:2)
Most open source software is limited to small, specific applications tailored to certain purposes. Not only that, but aside from Linux, there are relativly few "big time" open source programs out there.
All movements need a flagship. The French Revolutionaries had freedom, the Grange had gold and silver, the Hippies had pot and sex. The Open Source movement has Linux. Something probably would have taken its place, but probably later and probably not as effectivly.
Would Linux be the same without the open source aspect? Of course not. Look at OS/2. OS/2 is/was, in all respects, a superior operating system and networking environment to NT. However, the Microsoft clout (in addition to braindead IBM marketting people...don't include Win95 support...what a bunch of morons) killed it. Literally the only thing that keeps Linux alive is the fact that its Open Source. Try and put Linux under the same marketting model as NT, and it would go over like a lead balloon.
Hard to say (Score:1)
1. The maturing of Linux.
2. The freeing of Mozilla.
It's unlikely that 2 would have happened without 1, but it could have happened due to another OS or product that would have occurred without Linux.
But surely if Linux did not exist, we would be on an entirely different path to free software than we are today.
No-one knows what could have happened. We could have had HURD, a windows clone, or something entirely better than anything else we have today.
It's quite possible that the existence of Linux, is inhibiting the development of a superior free operating system that takes the best traits of all OSes and improves on them.
Bad events can have good consequences (such as the nuking of Japan leading to a relatively stable last 50 years), and good events can have bad consequences (maybe we would have been better off without Linux). We'll never know.
Re:HURD (Score:2)
Now, Im not blaming RMS or anyone, maybe, instead of choosing the Mach micro-kernel architecture, they should have gone out and developed their own kernel independently...
A scary vision (Score:1)
Torvalds would be fighting Microsoft for control of the OS market by selling the easy to use propriety bloatware that the public seems to love.
At least we'd see more cute penguins in the media.
Re:I'd still use Linux (Score:1)
`How far is it to Texas?' (Score:2)
The question hardly makes sense. There is no reasonable context. Not being Open Source would exclude nearly all of the contributions made by hundreds of volunteers. Linux is not written by some small cadre of developers who decide whether they will share. By definition, if it hadn't been GPLed, it would never have registered in the would of contemporary computing.
Where would a non-Open Source Linux be today? Perhaps about as far along as BeOS. The appeal of Linux is the source. Without the source and the right to read, distribute and change it, Linux would be no where.
Linux is the result of Open Source/Free Software (Score:1)
See the historical context of the rise of Linux:
"Most of you steal your software... What hobbyist can put years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"----An Open Letter to Hobbyists, Bill Gates, Micro-soft, 1976
"GNU... is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free... Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air."----The GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation, 1985
Microsoft Windows vs. GNU/Linux, 2000
Let's Think About This a Different Way... (Score:2)
Its a pointless question... (Score:1)
There is no way linux could have developed so quickly if it had not been Open Source. Linus would not have had the time or the energies to write and maintain a complete operating system. We, all the linux users of the world, have shown that it is very possible to write a full-fledged OS in Opec Source. Otherwise, linux would simply be another *nix. Therefore, be happy open source is here. Be happy you are part of the movement.
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"First they ignore you, they they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Ghandi
No difference (Score:1)
As to where the open source movement would be... its position would be little or no different. The same itches would have itched geeks in the ensuing years, and they would have scratched the same way. Albeit on top of BSD or whatever.
History is full of innovations that are made at almost the same time by two or more inventors. A free operating system, in this analysis, is no different than many other innovations in the past.
-Leonard
Re:Is it still free? (Score:1)
If GNU supported it and ported the development tools over, and then someone ported an X-server (pretty big if's I guess for a no-name OS from a finnish colleg student) but if that happened then I think Linux would still have taken off, but instead of Open Source riding on the back of Linux, Linux would have been riding on the back of Open Source.
If it weren't free the Linus would have been the one making $4.7 million dollars in a year (although it would have taken longer than what it has) and he could pay programmers to hack it full time. Or indeed if it was a commercial venture he would probably brought is some coding parnters from the beginning. Just look at BeOS, it's doing fairly well for itself, and it is a small commercial OS.
Another point to look at is that alot of companies for some reason won't use Open Source software, if Linux was commercial, but cheaper than the other UNIX OS's then maybe it would have grown more in the corporate world.
All of this is very speculative though and it is really hard to say which direction Linux would have went, but I think just saying it wouldn't be anywhere might be a hasty decision.
The we'd all be coding in Beastie/Chuckie T-Shirts (Score:1)
Seriously, then a great deal of the effort that went into the Linux kernel would have gone into either BSD and/or HURD. The way I see it, the time has come for OSS. If it hadn't been Linux, it would have been SOMETHING... It was inevitable.
Re:I'd still use Linux (Score:1)
Linux without Opensource... no way (Score:1)
The robust Linux operating system however has been the sucess story that the Opensource movement has needed for a long time.
Re:Um... (Score:1)
The difference were the licences. Linus didn't even have one, while MINIX only let you distribute a few copies of the source code (which you could buy on floppies for $80 or type in from the book) and only for educational purposes.
A more interesting question I think, would have been What difference, if any, would Linux have had with a BSD-like licence, or even no license at all?
Re:Let's Think About This a Different Way... (Score:2)
The time had come... (Score:1)
And if Linux wasn't open source, almost no one would ever had heard of it. Linus and maybe a few of his friends would be the only ones using it, if even they didn't get bored and give up on it.
Open Source is definately more than just being able to see the source code. It's also the right to make changes and distribute them to anyone, a sort of assurance that even if the original author vanishes off the face of the planet that the software can still be developed and supported, a support system that's not dependant on one central company to fix every bug single-handedly and then distribute as they see fit ($80 for a 6-month-late fix, for example), and a sense of community among the hackers (not definition 8 [tuxedo.org]) who do work on Open Source projects. Especially this sense of community is why most of us don't see many companies truely grokking Open Source.
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Linux WHATIFs... (Score:1)
Remember, Linus, when he developed Linux, actually distributed the source code to MIT and a few other places for them to aid in the developement, and it existed that way for a little more than a year before they released the first stable kernel. Rather than paying people to sit in a room and do something for the rest of their life which bored them to death, he utilized people who sat in a room and did nothing but program all day who would undergo a project like this for FREE (although paying them would have greatly helped improve Finland's unemployment rate)! The reason why Linux is so popular in the first place is because anyone and everyone who knew what an 'if...fi' statement was was either writing the source code of Linux or improving the programs which came with Linux.
If it wasn't for Joe Schmoe in some part of the world, I wouldn't be able to utilize my SB16 to play MP3s, and I'd have to plead to the company to use their time to create a driver for me! That's the true beauty of Linux and the reason why so many people love it, is because so many people created it. And if someone doesn't like it, they can make the changes theirself rather than e-mail the company (one in a million) to ask if they could change something in their next version!
Re:The GNU still has the HURD (Score:1)
Unix doesn't stand for anything, it's a pun on MULTICS, which was a failure.
Linux doesn't stand for anything, it's 'Linus Unix', basically.
However, 'The GNU HURD' stands for (pass one) "The GNU's Not Unix HIRD of Unix-Replacing Daemons".
Pass two: The (GNU's Not Unix)'s (HURD of Interfaces Representing Depth) of Unix-Replacing Daemons".
And, of course, it never ends, since you keep expanding GNU, HURD, and HIRD. Thank god GNU didn't make Unix or name Daemons or have any large effect on the English language. Make it stop! This is 8 billion times worse than anyone asking "How do you pronounce Linux".
...and, the HURD is a failure, so far. Everyone likes the system tools, though. Why? It's Unix. (I know. "GNU's Not Unix". You can shut up now) Ask me what the name of the utility means, and I can tell you.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
If it 'were' ... were were were! (Score:1)
Argh.
I think if Linux were closed source it would have about as much as an impact as Be does now --- a technically superior OS with a dedicated following, but no widespread acceptance (i.e. users rather that people who have merely heard of it).
Development would be probably a little slower on some stuff, too, methinks.
Re:Would have gone the way of Minix... (Score:2)
I think that the Linux kernel allowed the attainment of a complete GNU system at a very good time and because of that timing, we now have a rapidly maturing system.
If Linux hadn't moved into that space when it did, something else would have eventually, perhaps a BSD perhaps something else. I also think we'd be well behind where we are now and still irrelevant in the eyes of the mainstream. And yes, I think Linus' kernel would be languishing with Andy's.
-MV
Fate? (Score:1)
Whether or not it came, or is, in the face of "Linux", this is the path we are taking now - to get us where we need to be.
Strange how millions of people with the same ideas (or at least geared in the same direction) should just happen to collide at one point. Ofcourse, thats not how it appears to us.
No, it appears as though we have, one by one, slowly seen what is going on and banded together. Growing together for the same goals.
Linux is only a single piece of the means to the end. One which we are destined to create together. Ofcourse, there are still a few generations left before we have the outcome. So lets keep it going and setup the future for those who will play the next and final roles.
1000 years is 1 day to god. "On the Seventh day he rested" (time check: the year is 5760 - as you can see time is running out)
And that's all I got to say about that.
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Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com
Re:I'd still use Linux (Score:1)
True it wouldn't be the Linux we know today, but Linus is a damn talented coder, whose to say he wouldn't have found some sort of commercial backing like the other big OS's did, or maybe he would have happened along some guy with a 128bit computer in development that needed a good OS. Who knows?
We can't really say for sure where it would be. For all practically purposes DOS should have failed. It was inferior to UNIX by leaps and bounds, and everyone that used computers back then was computer literate, they didn't need an easier way, but Bill bought DOS for $50,000 or so and sold it to IBM? Why? We'll never know. Could Linux have gotten the same break, well we'll never know that either. But it is possible.
My pointless attempt at speculation. (Score:1)
Well this is probably kind of obvious, but I would guess the free *BSDs would be enjoying a larger userbase and more publicity than they currently are, for a start.
One of the reasons I've heard for Linux's success (at least initially) over the *BSDs is that it was available (and free) earlier, while the *BSD camp was involved with legal problems to do with their source. So it may have been that the same thing as what has happened to Linux would have happened to BSD. One thing to consider is the split of BSD into the three camps (Net, Open, and Free), which may have affected the success somewhat. It's very hard to compare the situations however, since there is only one Linux kernel, but there are lots of distributions - so the kernel is the same for everybody, but the other tools are different depending on the chosen distro. BSD is different, because it has three distinct kernels, and three sets of tools - and that's it.
What this means, is that the Linux community may feel more "as one" than the BSDs, due to the more defined split between each of the BSD distributions (yes, I know they still share a lot of code between them). A key factor in Linux's recent success has been all of the press it's had, would you get the same level of press with BSD in the same position (bearing in mind the 3 three distributions?). I think it's possibly that one of the BSDs might have really taken off over the others, possibly... I don't really know.
One thing that just occured to me, Linux and BSD are probably not much more or less fragmented than each other, in reality, but I most people see Linux as one, and the BSDs as three/divided.
On the other hand, if there were no "free" operating systems, I think one would have found it's way into the world anyway - there was a market for one, as the success of the current free OSes proves. Maybe GNU Hurd would have been picked up by more people and brought to a usable stage more quickly, or maybe someone else would've written something like what happened with Linux (Davix/DaveOS ;-).
Of course, this is all speculation, and my information might not even be very accurate. :-)
Keeping Linux in historical perspective... (Score:4)
First, it was the closest thing at that time to the "holy grail"- a low-cost, high performance, Unix-like system that was not in some way compromised. Back then, running a personal Unix box usally meant one of three things: a) A surplus commercial Unix system, usually one that had been retired because of obsolescence or was deeply discounted after the maker dropped it (anyone remember the AT&T UnixPC "Fire Sale"?), b) A PC running a very expensive copy of Xenix or Interactive Unix, c) A PC running a Unix-alike like Minix or Coherent at the cost of some feature like swap, virtual memory, or networking.
Secondly, it became a focal point for all the open source (praticularly GNU) software which already existed. Hurd was still a long way off, but here was an OS which could run the GNU tools, gcc, and X11.
Was the fact that Linux was open source important? I think it was somewhat, but not as much as some might think. The fact that Linux was open source allowed it to be quickly enhanced to support a wide range of "real world" hardware (back then, building a spare box out of parts that included an XT disk controller was important- these days, you'd just run down to CompUSA and buy another 20GB). A closed source OS could have conceivably captured as much interest, but the person/company maintaining it would have had to dance quickly.
(A case in point is the downfall of Coherent, a competing, closed source OS which was targeted at many of the same markets Linux is moving into now. )
Would the Open Source community be as big/imnportant today? Probably, but the rallying point would be very different. My personal guess would be gcc/egcs, though a closed source Linux might have hastened the development of Hurd; just so that the FSF could point to an Open Source OS which ran the GNU tools.
One final thought... let's not forget that early Linux was also a contemporary of 386BSD, the direct progenitor of FreeBSD and NetBSD. Now there is a "what-if" for you... what if Jolitz had been more responsive to providing fixes/updates? What if the USL suit hadn't occurred? Etc.
if (linux==closed_source) s/Linux/FreeBSD/g (Score:2)
About a year before I installed Linux on my machine for the first time, I was just starting to learn Unix. During that larval stage, I heard about something unique, something my commercial-software-bred mind never dreamed would exist: A free Unix for 386's.
(And I mean free in the free-beer sense. I wasn't aware of the fact that it came with source code and all the "free-speech" aspect.)
I said to myself "Wow, how can that be?" and started looking into it. What was I looking into? No, not Linux. 388BSD! (eventually FreeBSD.) That's right -- BSD got a head start. I didn't download or install it at the time, since I only had a 386sx25 w/ 4MB RAM and a 120MB HD, and it was getting used for course-work in DOS, GeoWorks, and Win 3.1. I also had a measly 9600 baud serial link to the 'net, so downloading would've been a royal pain.
During that year, hardware got upgraded, I got an ethernet link, my Unix skills matured somewhat, and coursework moved from DOS/Win 3.1 to Unix-centric work. I went back to look for that free Unix I'd heard about, at which time Linux was evangelized to me. Had there been no Linux, I'd be a BSD user today. Instead, I installed SLS 1.03 (and later, Slackware 1.1.1) and never looked back.
That's about the long and the short of it: If there were no Linux, I suspect FreeBSD would've filled its role in my life and in many other hacker's lives. It might not have filled it as nicely, since it's more fun to conduct an OS revolution with an OS which is ostensibly a fresh rewrite, but oh well. Besides, I think Chuck (BSD's cute daemon) is a darn cool mascot for an OS, and could've made up for it.
I suspect if Linux weren't open-source, it would never have reached the critical mass that brought it to so many peoples' attentions back in 1994 and 1995. BSD or Hurd or something may have taken peoples' attention instead. Who knows?
--Joe--
my small percentage of one monetary unit (Score:1)
But people saw potential, and since they had the source were able to help expand linux into what it is today.
So after having repeated what everyone else already said (you're welcome.) i'll had some more worthless stuff:
I was vaguely familiar with the concept of open source when I started using Linux. My OS of choice was Solaris when I set up my first Linux box, and came to appreciate the GNU utilities that the admins had kindly installed. For one thing I liked some of the options that some of the GNU versions offered (tar xvfz is much better than gunzip -c foo.tgz | tar xvf -) and as I became more curious about learning what made the box work I spent more and more time reading the source code of these utilities and learning what made them work.
another great advantage to open source was that if i downloaded a program and it didn't work quite as I wanted to... if I had the source, I could fix it! What a great concept! It made my life so much less frustrating.
After a couple years on Solaris I finally got together enough money to buy a cheap PC so that I could use a puter in my room instead of going to the uni computer labs, and I gave the whole Linux thing a try. (windoze has never infested my hard drive, i'm so proud!) I definitely love Linux. So here's my final anecdote:
A couple months ago a friend mailed me a question... programs were starting to segfault with alarming frequency, and he noticed some obscure message in his kern.log (forget what it was) and he had no idea what was wrong... so I go into
So to get to some sort of point: If Linux had not been open source, it would not have appealed to people like me. If it had not appealed to people like me, it would probably never have spread far... and Linux for a long time only spread among the hacker type... not until it had a large hackerish following did other people start playing with it. So if Linux had not been open source, I don't think it would exist.
As far as the open source movement, I think it would've done ok without Linux. It might have taken longer, but if there had been no Linux for people to focus their energy on, these people would have probably focused their energy one of the free BSD variants, or maybe even on the Hurd. Some open-source OS would've taken a similar position to the one of Linux. I think open source was destined to get big one way or another... it just might have taken longer...
I hope I haven't bored anyone, and I hope my rantings haven't been too redundant... peace out.
Linux wouldn't exist (Score:1)
-MV
Open Source not really the issue (Score:1)
It would be something like BeOS. (Score:2)
I think that the system would be specialized. It would either be something geared at ISP's, large enterprises or for embedded use, but not all three. It would probably not attempt to crack the desktop market.
You might not see ``swiss army knife'' features like advanced routing, loopback block devices, or user-space network drivers. It's unlikely that there would be good support for hobbyists, such as amateur radio hackers.
The platform support would almost certainly suck. It would most likely not run on SPARCs, Alphas, PPC's, 68K's, Intels, Strongarms, etc.
The openness of Linux lets it be more things to more people, from small applications to big ones.
Anyway, proprietary software often makes or breaks it according to circumstances that have nothing to do with technical merit.
We could equally ask, how well would {Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, NT, BeOS,
Re:Um... (Score:1)
I think that under a less restrictive license it still would have become fairly popular, but also could have been merged with the *BSD's. And, of course, would probably have not had as much development in many areas (perhaps ext2, for instance) where code could have been taken from other projects. (or maybe those projects would have gotten improved)
However, a lot of commercial systems would also probably be based on Linux now, like perhaps MacOS X.
I don't think I can second-guess the present much more, though.
My favorite future would be the one where X and Wine became perfect and supplanted Windows and Windows Terminal Server. I'm waiting...
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Re:The GNU still has the HURD (Score:1)
What I really like about the HURD is that if I ever get to the point where I can program well, I might actually be able to help. If ever....
Jeremy
Re:It would be something like BeOS. (Score:1)
But BeOS (your example OS), does not support the bleeding edge hardware yet. It doesnt even support those that are supported by Linux. And that comes from an OS that claims to be a media OS (ok.. you tell me to give it time), but time has been given right? And you can now count the number of supported sound card with your fingers and the number of supported video cards can be numerated to the lowely SVGA/3dfx products. Which is a shame for a OS that pretends to be a media OS.
PS: I have great respect for anything that tries to be like MacOS
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Good timing, I think (Score:1)
Linux was introduced at a time when unix was really screwed up with a bunch of proprietary systems. MS finally introduces a viable version of their "innovative" OS (note: didn't hear much about windows 1 & 2).
But the key was the availability of an OS that one could play with on a computer that they had access to. Also it is was critical that there were a lot of ppl that now had access to these computers.
I have no idea if the end of the Cold War has anything to do with this. However, I think that the international aspect of Linux development is very important. Hence, the maturity of the internet at this same time is also very important.
Nonetheless, I think that the most important aspect is the reason why GNU and Open Source even was started. The time to write the code is best left to ppl who are young, idealistic, full of energy, intellectually sharp, and without a whole lot of responsibilities.
RMS: A butterfly once; software hurricane today (Score:5)
I didn't realize that some pieces of his OS puzzle were already written and that a roadmap for the rest was well underway, but at the time I couldn't help but think that the whole idea was just plain stupid. I remember talking with my friend about the endevour afterward and basically pointing out that nobody much cared about UNIX as an Operating System, they bought hardware. People paid huge sums of money for high powered LISP machines from LMI and Symbolics -- not because they ran LISP (for the most part) but because with that hardware and a talented programmer one could do amazing things. At the time I figured the same was true for the emerging UNIX Workstation market, and that these machines would always be far too expensive for a free Operating System to matter at all. Who would throw away a vendor supplied OS and support just to run GNU? Idiotic.
Even though it was obvious given that superior hardware like the Macintosh was getting close to Workstation potential at almost PC prices, I just didn't see that the PC class computer would gain the CPU horsepower and instruction set necessary to run a UNIX class operating system -- even though low end UNIXen were already available for the PC. The idea that end users, not developers might want to run UNIX seemed more far fetched than a vegetarian pigging out in the Central Square MacDonalds (this is Cambridge, mind you).
So, several years later, around early '93 or so, I found myself with a 386sx running Windows -- and hating every minute of it. Upon bitching to my friend about the piece of crap that is Windows, and beating myself over the head for not taking the hit and buying a Macintosh (price gouging or no) my friend pointed out that a BSD clone for the x86 was available called 386BSD, and that some folks were working on another called FreeBSD. He also told me about another cheesy UNIX kernel clone called Linux, but steered me to BSD and offered to make me a set of install floppies.
"Oh, and by the way -- it runs Stallman's 'Idiotic' software," he pointed out.
Brainy MIT blowhards; always ready to point out that you missed the obvious. So, given his amazing net pipe and my funding a few boxes of floppies, I was able to install the software and check it out. And it was good but not terribly usable (mostly because I had a hard time configuring a serial port for a modem, and X wasn't usable) so I shelved the whole thing again until my friend again told me I was being an idiot and gave me an Yggdrasil CDrom in '94. That Worked! I had the thing installed with X running in an hour, and was able to figure out the serial port stuff within a day or so.
I haven't run Windows on my home computer since. Not that RMS cares about my opinion (he is a wacko -- but the good kind), still I thank him for all the effort against such adversity. I also thank him for not listening to the likes of me because there must have been an avalanche of people telling him his idea was stupid and pointless. It takes a certain kind of crazy to persevere through many years of careful building, stage by stage, to success while the whole world views your endevour as Quixotic folly. They, and I, were wrong -- he was right. Period.
Thank you RMS.
--Maynard
I don't care. I like my OS. (Score:2)
I see nothing wrong with this. Linux is a kernel, and most Linux distrobutions do not hide this kernel or the Unix utilities from the user too much. I love it. So do alot of other Linux users.
This model probably doesn't make sense for many typical desktop users, but I don't care. Linux works for me and that's what I do care about. I only care about Linux being more successful to the point that it brings applications that I'm interested in to my platform.
Now, nothing is stopping a motivated vendor from taking the Linux kernel and overlaying a completely non-Unix working environment over it -- eg. one which replaces all of the Unix tools with a comprehensive GUI environment that replaces /sbin/init. Then you can have your GUI only easy to use OS. It wouldn't be Linux in the traditional sense -- it'd be something different. "Lindows" perhaps? Whatever you call it, I won't use it. I won't come near it. It's not for me. It does not cater to my needs. But that's ok, it works for another group of people entirely.
The point? To each his own. Linux does not have to be all things to all people, just like Ferrari's shouldn't come with tow packages, and heavy-duty pickup trucks shouldn't come with lowering springs and spoilers. But, there's nothing stopping you from dropping a nice V12 engine in both.
--Joe--
Also, Linux is the only UNIX clone. (Score:2)
If Linux were proprietary, it wouldn't be sufficiently UNIX like so on those grounds alone it would differ, since compatibility was and still is an important requirement. What proprietary vendor could even make a business case for meeting such a requirement, starting from scratch?
Easy: if Linux weren't open source it would be SCO (Score:1)
Re:Linux wouldn't exist (Score:1)
Have you ever used FreeBSD? I'd say it can hold it's own against Linux, maybe even better if it had all of its developers and all the Linux developers.
As far as linux not existing I have responded to that once maybe twice already, just read my response deeper in this tread if you care to carry the subject further
Re:Would have gone the way of Minix... (Score:3)
Minix is a training OS that accompanies a textbook. It's purpose is to be like the training ships that the Navy puts ensigns on. Not the most elaborate ship in the fleet, in fact too many bells-n-whistles just obscures it's purpose.
In the era when Linus Torvalds developed his new kernel, there were people hassling Dr. Tannenbaum to get him to expand Minix into a "general purpose OS" that they could use for regular computing. Since he wanted to keep it simple, for the above detailed reasons, he basically refused to expand it.
People who claim that Minix "failed" because it didn't grow the way Linux has really misunderstand the entire reason that Dr. Tannenbaum produced it in the first place.
Re:you suck (Score:1)
I know I really shouldn't carry this thread any further becuase this guy is an obvious troll, but am I the only one that sees the connection between staring at a windows box all day and incoherent speech, bad grammor, lack of conversation skills, etc. etc. etc. ?
Re:linux sucks (Score:1)
wow. that is amazingly informed. your obvious higher intelligence has produced a great argument, founded in well prepared facts and excellent observations.
one point escapes me: if you're so anti-linux, why are you reading such a publication as subersive as slashdot?
oh, and please note: you seem to speak with the voice of truth. why post anonymously?
have a great day, and i hope when puberty starts, it isn't too rough on ya.
Re:you suck (Score:1)
does anyone see the connection?? i think that this post has had the effect of drawing huge blinking radioactive neon arrows toward that fact. this thread is pretty weak.
Re:Also, Linux is the only UNIX clone. (Score:2)
Are? I'm not sure.
Were? Yes - a company called Mark Williams had a V7-clone called Coherent; I remember hearing a story that AT&T actually had Dennis Ritchie reading their code to make sure they hadn't stolen any UNIX code.
Mark Williams is no longer with us, and presumably the same is true of Coherent.
So at least one company was "crazy enough to undertake all this in a commercial, proprietary setting"; I don't know how successful they were when they were around, nor do I know whether the fact that they're not around any more says that they really were crazy.
open source is essential (Score:2)
If a closed source company makes the wrong technology bets, the users are stuck with it. For example, Microsoft may bet the house on MFC and COM, and their users have no choice. Their developers have to re-train, re-tool, and rewrite their code. In an open source world, if some development path doesn't meet the needs of the users, it will simply be abandoned. The needs of most users are met because a certain fraction of any large user community will have developers in it that are sufficiently motivated to pick up the torch.
And if a closed source company makes a real blunder, they go out of business and their product generally becomes poorly supported or disappears entirely. Then, I'm stuck with a lot of software written to proprietary APIs and with a lot of learning and training time invested in a system that doesn't exist anymore. That's a big risk for long term software projects.
The difference between closed source systems and open source systems is quite analogous to the difference between central economic planning and a free market. It's ironic that Microsoft, the company that is often held up as the icon of free market success, is actually a huge, centrally planned enterprise, with all the inefficiencies and risks that that implies, both for the company and the customers that depend on it.
So, no, if Linux weren't open source, I wouldn't be using it, and I believe neither would many other people. And (Sun take notice) I think whether something is open source or not should be determined by whether any user can take the source and make a new branch off the existing development, since that, to me, is the essence of open source.
Re:Linux wouldn't be Linux if it weren't open sour (Score:2)
So, while Linux isn't the hands-down best OS out there, it certainly has a number of things going for it
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Other Factors At Least As Relevant as Open-Source (Score:3)
In the early 90's, the power of the average PC was on the rise. With the 386 and 486 processor, it became ludicrous to run a single-user real mode operating system on such powerful hardware.
The Internet came into wide use, and the bandwidth to move big blocks of data around became very cheap. Email became "almost free" which made widespread collaboration efforts possible.
With the advent of low-cost CD-rom drives in almost all machines, it became easy to ship around a lot of data.
As the hardware become more and more cheap, it became an 'easy out' for people needing to harness a lot of raw power to just apply all the old designs to the new cheaper hardware. The 70's and 80's designs, developed for expensive proprietary hardware, could be pasted into a project like Linux. (it's no coincidence that Linux developed as a Unix-like project, it filled the hardware void for all that old code).
It fun, and it gets certain Open Source(tm) Evangalists their honorarium fees and plane fair, but the fact that it's Open Source(tm) is only one of many factors that lead to the popularity of a Unix-like OS for PC hardware called Linux.
The Sliders version (Score:4)
I just slid over to an alternate universe where Linus Torvalds was hit by a bus in 1990, but everything else from 1990 to 1992 was pretty much the same. Thus in this alternate universe there was a free Unix-compatible kernel (actually several: FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Jolitz BSD).
Many of the BSDers jumped to a proprietary company called BSDI. The alternate RMS, fearing a repeat of the Lisp Machines days when all the free software became proprietary again, jumped into action. He kicked the Hurd hackers off the BSD payroll and managed to hire Bill Jolitz, who was so pissed off at the BSDI founders that he abandoned his old opposition to the GPL. RMS put out version 3 of the GPL, which blessed the BSD advertising clause, when he realized that otherwise the GNU/BSD kernel wouldn't be legal.
Now there was a closed group of folks in the GPL camp, and another closed group of folks in the BSD camp. Releases from both of them were eagerly anticipated, but only the elite could play ... until along came a group of more democratically minded folks that started a project called, as in this universe, Debian. In an attempt to heal the rift between the two warring camps, they named their project ...
Debian GNU/BSD.
Meanwhile the antitrust settlement had split Microsoft into an OS and an application software division, and forced Microsoft to make the MSHTTP spec free (hardly anyone used the web after Microsoft knocked off Netscape in this universe, since they put so many bells and whistles into the spec that no one could write working web pages).
Soon Megasoft Office BSD was out, thanks to porting help from a Scandanavian company named Troll Tech. Within a year, Microsoft (the OS company) had lost significant market share, but every business was forced to buy Megasoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. An idealistic group of folks who found this intolerable founded a project called GNOME.
Most folks thought that the Debian and GNOME efforts would fail, but they actually made unexpectedly rapid progress. Eric Raymond became famous when he wrote a paper that documented this.
"Free" (speech) doesn't necessarily imply "GPLed" (Score:2)
If it hadn't been GPLed, it might've been released under a BSD-ish or X-ish license (in fact, I have the impression that the first license Torvalds put on it wasn't the GPL, but was some license of his own, and that he later GPLed it; I don't remember the details of the terms he originally put on it).
I suspect any license that would've made it free-as-in-speech would've been sufficient, although there is the question of whether that would've caused non-free commercial derivatives to spring up, and what effect that would've had.
(When it comes to the original question, my personal suspicion is that it would, indeed, probably not have been a big success had it not been free-as-in-speech (and thus contributed to by a cast of thousands) and free-as-in-beer (and thus available to members of that cast of thousands to put on a machine at home, or at school, or...).)
Re:I'd still use Linux (Score:2)
Re:Let's Think About This a Different Way... (Score:2)
The OS (or family of OSes) that has the biggest market share in the commercial and consumer marketplace has a command line. It's not as powerful a command line as that of UNIX, perhaps, and it may not be as necessary to drop down to the command line on those OSes as it is on at least some UNIX-flavored desktop OSes, but it does exist.
Give the PHB the perception that the command line doesn't exist, and they won't have the perception that there's anything odd to do on the command line.
I see no evidence to support that assertion. I suspect it'd be sufficient, at least at the "recompiling the kernel" level (and, mutatis mutandis, the "recompiling any other part of the system" level), to make it unnecessary to recompile the kernel for most purposes (e.g., making heavy use of loadable kernel modules, etc.).
(There will be applications ("embedded" systems, say, and perhaps at least some servers) where the ability to recompile the kernel may be a win, so, of course, the ability should't disappear.)
Perhaps there will be "end-user desktop" distributions where the source doesn't come on the distribution CD (the GPL doesn't require that what you distribute come with the source, you merely have to make the source available "for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution", "on a medium customarily used for software interchange"; that medium doesn't have to be the medium that contains the binary).
I'm not sure that's required to calm the fears of PHBs, however. I think the main reason for that might be to take one item off the list of options in the install program, to simplify the installation process, or, if the OS is pre-loaded on machines, it would be done to leave more disk space for pictures of the grandchildren or downloaded music or whatever.
Re:When you got Linux, was it because it was OSS? (Score:5)
You're right, users don't care about the source code - but developers do, and to make an OS you need developers, not users.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:99% of Linux users could care less. (Score:4)
If the source weren't available from the get-go, people like Alan Cox and DaveM (along with thousands of other developers) would never have jumped into kernel development. Without that kernel development, Linux would be one sorry-ass OS right now and no one in their right minds would use it.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Getting the One True UNIX (or something close) (Score:2)
I suppose System V Release 2 or so could also be thought of as the UNIX most commercial UNIXes these days derive from, either directly or indirectly, although SVR2's APIs, as noted, largely resemble a superset of V7, with some PWBisms, and some other additions, e.g. shared memory, and some changes, e.g. a different TTY driver "ioctl" interface.
SCO's only charging USD 100 for the license, it appears - and they also may "waive the license fee for a limited number of deserving applicants", where they suggest that "deserving" may include " student, unemployed, disabled, financially challenged, etc."
The sources are, of course, to PDP-11 UNIXes, so to actually run them you'd need a PDP-11, or a PDP-11 simulator [digital.com].
Copyrights! (Score:2)
Furthermore, we are just NOW in the throws of the revolution. The seeds were planted long ago and they are just now showing their fruits. Wait 5 years before making the statement that Open Source hasn't revolutionized anything. We'll know soon enough, but right now we're too close to see the big picture.
Re:a philosophical stance...of one sort or another (Score:2)
I'm not sure I'd go quite that far. Yes, it's all speculative, but one's position on what would've happened had Linux not been open-source may influence one's position on whether some project should be, or should become, open-source, and discussion might (or might not, of course...) help one eliminate speculations weakly supported or not supported by what data we have on what did happen with various software projects, and thus might (or might not...) help one make a better decision on said (hypothetical) project.
However, it may be wise to avoid coming up with Final Definite Conclusions about the effect of making projects open-source until there's a large set of projects that did, and didn't, go open-source, and enough time since they began to decide whether they succeeded or failed (bearing in mind, of course, Keynes' comment that, in the long run, we are all dead - or the statement it's claimed Zhou Enlai made when asked about the historical importance of the French Revolution, "It's too early to tell" - how long do you have to wait before you can decide what effect something had, and, by that time, is the answer meaningful or relevant?).
(And, of course, the projects may differ in ways having nothing to do with the openness of the source and that cause them to succeed or fail independently of whether they're open-source or not.)
Linux @ Universities (Score:2)
Linux is the second best operating system in existance today (tied with *BSD), and I think Linux will have a very long future because of this. It is also because of this that Microsoft is running scared. It is something they do not control, and something they cannot control. I think we're going to see Microsoft vaporwaring for the next few years to try and detract people from Linux and OS...it is a nesscary evil, and will thankfully be around though the next millenium, it it (and *BSD) will both be the best OS until the day comes that they design the next best OS.
===
Which would you trust a life support system run on WinCE? or a Life support system run on Linux? How about on your pace maker? Would you like your pacemaker to run WinCE? As soon as your heart beat becomes iregular it crashes!
Okay no idea how I got to MS bashing....but....if O.S. dies....WinCE will live, lets hope that doesn't happen.
Re:When you got Linux, was it because it was OSS? (Score:2)
Re:my small percentage of one monetary unit (Score:2)
Perhaps - although even better might have been a knowledge base (think HOWTO, if the term "knowledge base" sets off anti-Microsoft antibodies :-)) so that one wouldn't have to search the kernel source to find out what that message was saying, whether what it's saying could explain the problems one is seeing, and how to fix the problem.
It's nice that you can open the hood/bonnet and check the engine - sometimes the answer might not be in a knowledge base, and sometimes the answer in the knowledge base might not be the right answer for the particular problem you're seeing, and it's also nice that you can take a look and see what software is doing, see how it's doing it, and see why it's doing it, and it's nice that you can make it do something different - but it's not necessarily nice if you have to do that.
Some of us DO care (Score:2)
I've been pretty OS agnostic over time. I got my start with Basic 7 (the C128 was a terrific machine). Then I went through the DOS stage... DOS really was a terrible OS, and 16-bit realmode was a terrible platform, so for a long time I went back to the commodore (this was a long time ago...)
But then I went back to DOS... 16-bit C code was still a real pain, but I learned to hack it and started using other compilers... C-- was especially cool...
I tried windows 3.x, really didnt like programming in it, went back to DOS. Eventually I heard of DJGPP and got my first taste of DOS32. When properly set up, DOS32 feels very much like *NIX... And yes, it has long file names.
Back in those days, I was hacking OS bits together. I wrote the DLX dynamic linker, which is still in a decent amount of use by the DJGPP folks, as the basis of an OS-style project. I did some work on threading, and wrote a preliminary bootstrap loader. My real goal was to get a DJGPP-based system running without DOS. I tried Caldera OpenDOS/DRDOS/whatever, got some decent success..
But then I tried Linux... I was quite comfortable with the commandline, as I was already using bash and gcc on a daily basis. Really all I needed to learn to use Linux was how to navigate vim.
Anyways, to the point, I had already myself almost developed an OS kernel of my own. This meant that the Linux kernel, which already did many of the things that I was hacking on, was of a LOT of interest to me... I quickly began becoming familiar with the sourcecode. I've even done some kernel hacking myself, although it's pretty much limited to a video driver or two.
But if Linux were not open-sourced, I personally would have stuck with DJGPP, and finished off my true DOS32 kernel, and probably start using that... I was actually working on a few really neat dynamic linking hacks before I stopped...
I should probably put out an opensource project or two for Linux... Although, the company I'm with will be releasing a few that I head ;)
Enough ranting.
Re:Not another one! (Score:3)
RMS made the GPL,and released gcc under it.
Linus made Linux, and turned it into a full-fledged Unix with the help of gcc. Therefore, he GPL'ed it out of respect to gcc and therefore RMS and GNU.
People looking for a free Unix found this, and it fit a niche, being in the right place at the right time.
This is the story of how that historical event happened.
You might not like the GPL, but it allows people to collaborate in a strict way. It encourages the kind of programming freedom that people used to have before people started programming for money instead of love.
Microsoft has always been too proud to do this, but it makes me feel better knowing that they write bad code for money, and can't write good code out of love. I'm sure there's a moral lesson there. Of course they don't love their customers: they love their money.
It got moderated up because it was a real, on-topic post about the historical events leading up to what Linux has done today. It's a thoughtful post, and remember: Open Source is the popular remarketing of Free Software, taking a different means to the desired end.
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Free Software is as communist as church! (Score:5)
I made this very same point in a comment in "Photogenics To Be Released For Linux" There is nothing about the GPL or Free Software which relates to Communism! If that were the case you should call the pope Communist for redistributing the wealth of donations given to the church for the needy. Or for that matter, you should call those Shriners, driving their petit cars around collecting money for burn victims "Communist." Bullshit!
Communism is a political ideology, and has nothing to do with non-political groups of people organizing together for common cause and purpose. To call RMS a Communist is to promote Fascism. Why? Because that is state sponsored and controlled Capitalism! And I'm guessing that if Free Software, The Shriners, and the Church are considered Communist because members of such share ideas and wealth, then we've just stepped down the sliperly slope toward enacting state sponsored criminalization of such activity. And that IS fascism.
BTW, how did this completely off-topic post get moderated to the top of this discussion? Not a single mention of "if I had to pay for Linux" or "if I couldn't get the source", just an apparently random tribute to a prominent figure in the world of free software.
It's obvious to me, though not directly stated: If Linux hadn't been released under the GPL, but had been released under something close to the Minux license, it would have whithered on the vine while the BSD's and GNU grew up to take it's place today. We would still have Free Software, and Linux would be an unknown afterthought.
Xlib
Re:Also, Linux is the only UNIX clone. (Score:2)
[OT] though it had some problems (namely filename length) the filesystem of OS/32 had some interesting features: fixed length files that you pre-allocated (so they were guaranteed contiguous) and then filled in with two levels of support for dynamic files. A bit clunky, but interesting none-the-less. However, I'm glad I will probably never see one of those disks again:). At least the filesystem internals were documented...
Re:Linux meaning (Score:2)
Re:HURD (Score:2)
I wouldn't be a sysadmin now (Score:2)
If Linux hadn't been GPLed I wouldn't be where I am today, let alone Linux:).
GPL evil? (Score:2)
As Linus said, whoever writes the code gets to make the license. If you really want to live in a world where it's ok to take people's work without giving anything back, then fine. All people should just give to those who gave to them and the GPL would be unnecessary, just like marriage vows to lovers. Guess what, we don't live in a perfect world. So lovers take vows and coders use the GPL.
There are some human beings on this planet who happen to have ideals and actually want to live by them on occasion. If you really dislike dealing with idealists that much, commit a crime and go to prison. You'll be surrounded by plenty of perfectly practical people. If you want to live in the real world, you're going to have to follow a few rules. One of them is that you don't get to do what you want. We all require each other to be at least minimally decent human beings. RMS is trying to get people to be a little more decent than that on just one particular aspect of human life.
The only restriction that the GPL carries is that everyone has to play by the same rules. Simple. That's it. If you want to call that communistic, fine. We all have to play by the same rules that we don't get to murder someone. I guess that that's communistic too. But you know what? We all live in a community.
Oh, and about that windows nonsense and helping the common man. Giving technology to evil men isn't always in the common man's best interests. Sometimes you have forgo small things to get big ones. If you make a slave's life too comfortable he might not fight to be free. It's called the "big picture". I.e. thinking more than five minutes into the future. Nothing is guaranteed in this life, but a world dominated by one corporation is probably going to be inferior to a world where people have more control over their own lives. Microsoft must be destroyed in its current form because it poses a threat to the world. If people suffer a little bit because of that necessity, the world isn't going to fall off its axis. After all, the human race did perfectly well without computers for millenia. A few extra years without a good stable operating system for the masses isn't going to kill us now.
In conclusion, why don't you go off into seclusion and become a hermit and rant your prattle about anything where people actually give to each other being communistic to yourself. This way no one will have to perform the communistic act of listening to you instead of shooting you. Think about it for a minute? What's so evil about a license where the whole of the law is that if you take you have to give?
Concurrent(?) OS/32 (Off-topic) (Score:2)
I suspect not; I don't remember "OS/32" being associated with it, and its file system was UNIXish (and its API UNIX-compatible).
Perhaps you meant Concurrent OS/32? OS/32 was originally a (non-UNIX-compatible) OS from Interdata; Interdata got bought by Perkin-Elmer, was spun off from Perkin-Elmer as Concurrent Computer, and merged with Masscomp (here's a page on their history [ccur.com]). It looks as if they're still supporting OS/32, and the machines on which it ran, to some degree, according to the "Latest Facts" page on the Series 3200 [ccur.com] on Concurrent's Web site.
(Some of my earliest systems programming work was at a summer job at Interdata, back in 1972; they were located near where my family lived. This was long before OS/32 existed - at the time I was there, some people there were working on an new OS that would add support for disk files that had names.)
Re:RMS is a jerk (Score:2)
Linux/OSS Symbiosis (Score:4)
Not only that, the openness of the kernel, and the ever expanding uses that computers are put to virtually guarantees that development and extension will take place for some time to come.
In addition, there are many more high-profile personalities out there (than just ESR) now, that are heavily involved with Linux-based OSS projects.
Linux has gained:
These may strike some as needless distinctions, but it brings attention to the multiple levels of granularity and customizability in the Linux OS system. Some due to factors intrinsic to Linux itself, some due to the benefits and influences from the OSS movement.
Suffice it to say that, while Linux would probably still exist without OSS, it would probably not resemble the Linux we know today. In addition, OSS would still exist without Linux, but it would also bear little resemblence to the OSS community we know today. In either case, we would still be the poorer for not having said symbiosis.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Re:A scary vision (Score:2)
When Linux was born, the free software community lacked a kernel. Most of the important hacker things were available, compilers, shells, editors, TeX.
The GNU project was slowly developing HURD; it was slow, since all serious hackers already had machines with a kernel on it; may it be SunOS, HP-UX, or whatever; even though it wasn't free, they didn't pay for it. Only 386 machines had such a sucking OS that there was something to do about.
At the same time Linux came around, there was the 386BSD project (which forked into the *BSDs later). At that time, it was at least as exciting as Linux (and more complete), but it went into troubles when AT&T claimed that they had rights on it. Since both systems weren't ready at that time, people rather contributed to Linux instead of 386BSD, which could have been a dead end. When the AT&T struggles were resolved, it was a bit too late. The BSD teams choosed also a more elitist development model, which lead to the well-known splits... Linus most important invention wasn't the Linux kernel, it was the bazaar development model.
If Linux hadn't been free software, noone would have noticed. If it wasn't developed bazaar-style, BSD would have a lead.
I laugh every time I see a brief explanation what Linux is, and it always reads as "Linux was developed early in 1991 by an undergrad student in Helsinki". No, it wasn't. Linux 0.1 was, the latter versions were developed by a team of volunteers all over the world. It's like saying that the Saturn V was developed by Hermann Oberth in his backyard. And we all use computers developed by Konrad Zuse in the living room of his parents.
Re:Linux wouldn't be Linux if it weren't open sour (Score:2)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:When you got Linux, was it because it was OSS? (Score:2)
As a matter of fact... yes. I did start with Linux because it was GPLed (not Open Source, at that time ERS hadn't even thought of making "freedom" marketing-correct). By the time I became aware of Linux's existance (and by the first time I saw a box running Linux) I did know what the GPL was. In fact, I had read it quite a few times trying to get "the catch" in it... The first thing the person who showed me that first box told me, was that the kernel of that operating system was GPLed.
So you are partially right, I couldn't care less if the source was available or not. What I cared was the thing was under a license that I liked. Too many times I had seen "see the code but don't toucht it" type of licenses...
Nowhere (Score:2)
Linux got a lot of very powerful (not in the financial/political sense, but in the technical and later marketing sense) mindshare concentrated around it fairly quickly. IMHO, that is why it survived and thrived -- there were a lot of people out there who were attracted to that kind of project, who had the oomph needed to make it work.
BSD has, as I see it, three disadvantages from this standpoint:
1) The development model is closed -- it's a very tight core of people. That makes it hard for new people to jump on board. The BSD folks seem to like to tout it as an advantage. I don't think so. Whatever advantage there may be in having a small core of very highly qualified people and not having to worry about "substandard" code is more than outweighed by the sheer creative energy and new ideas unleashed by the openness of the Linux development process.
2) BSD's been around a lot longer and has gotten a bit stale. This partly related to (1), but partly it's also the natural tendency of something that has been around for a long time getting tired. I don't intend this as harshly as it comes across (and I'm well aware that it sounds nasty, although that's not my intent). The BSD folks are dedicated and very good, but they've been working on the same thing for a long time (in their various camps). Linux doesn't have a lot of baggage, and it's a lot easier to try new things. Of course, this implies that in 5-10 years Linux will be in much the same position. Probably it will. Linus tries to stave it off (he said this somewhere a year or two ago) by being picky about what goes into the kernel, and the greater turnover of developers is probably also healthy, but it's also not the be-all and end-all of systems. Eventually it's going to get tired too, and somebody else will come up with something better.
3) The GPL. It's really a finely tuned instrument for maximizing code availability and minimizing the destructive kind of forking. This, more than anything else, is RMS's greatest contribution. The really nifty thing about the GPL is that it ensures that all changes that anyone wants to distribute to anyone are made available to everyone, but it also ensures that nobody has any premature veto over anything. Linus can decide what he'll put into the Linux kernel that he distributes, but he can't stop anyone from distributing something else. Likewise, somebody else can't take the Linux kernel, make useful but proprietary changes, and force a split (particularly when other people make other changes with incompatible licensing, and force people to choose). The first effect ensures that Linus stays on his toes; he can't ignore something very useful that someone else has done just because he doesn't like that person -- he can ignore the specific bit of code, but if enough people like it, he'll eventually have to allow in something that does what's desired. It also exposes all new ideas to the light of day very quickly, where the market -- not the "owner" -- can evaluate them. The second ensures -- in a PRACTICAL sense -- that things can't get so incompatible that everything gets out of hand.
Whatever the theoretical risks of forking (which are much overblown, to put it mildly), the GPL is probably the one form of public license that allows for wide-open public participation but really does have great immunity against forking. As Vinod put it in Halloween (2?), being able to fix bugs or add features -- and then contributing them back, and seeing them get public use -- is very empowering.
It's very nice to be able to sit back and say "I have some code in the Linux kernel that millions of people are using" even if it's some trivial little thing (in my case, it's something like a 5-line patch to speed up argv handling in exec()). I suspect that that factor has a much bigger part to play in the early success of Linux than many give it credit for -- there was nothing else around at the time that did that.
Then we have another feature of the GPL -- the Great Equalizer. Some people say that the GPL is very business-unfriendly, since it doesn't allow for proprietary enhancements, and that the BSD license should be preferred on those grounds. I think not; the fact that your competitor is under the same constraints makes for a very equal situation. Under the BSD license, if you want to add value and resell it, you almost have to make your changes proprietary, because otherwise your competitor can take your public changes and put them into a proprietary product. The GPL forbids this; you can make a useful change and contribute it back with no fear that your competitor can use your own work against you. So everyone is equal under it; nobody can steal an advantage by means of hiding information; you need to execute better.
There's no such thing as complete freedom; there do have to be basic ground rules to ensure some basic level of cooperation, or else there are too many people who are looking to twist things to their short term advantage. That's where the GPL excels. And that, I think, is a big part of why Linux got where it is today. That, and executing well.
Re:GPL evil? (Score:3)
The BSD licence embodies the Golden Rule. It sets a good example, gives of itself freely, and asks nothing in return.
The GPL is nothing like that. It is not a free gift, being kind and generous and decent even to those who use those gifts in ways that the doner disapproves of.
It is deeply ironic that you should ask God to damn the rule you cite, and then proceed to so disastrously misapply.
Be careful what you ask for.
Oh God, yes, another one! (Score:2)
RMS is largely responsible for the current rise of Free Software. Period. Without him Linus and the BSD folks wouldn't have had the tools necessary to write the Linux kernel, and rewrite out all that AT&T code in BSD. Face it, without the compiler and userspace tools written by the FSF and RMS I suspect that the BSD movement might have died under the weight of AT&T's lawsuit.
IMNSHO, the GPL is evil. It was deliberately designed to be incompatible with everything else and is a huge pain in the butt for many people. One world, one licence, one messiah, eh?
Say what you will about your distaste for the GPL, but without RMS's hard work across nearly a fallow decade lacking Free Software development in the '80s, this movement just wouldn't be viable. In a large measure, his hard work responsible for your access to Linux and BSD!
[...]it's about rebellion and communism and programmers making as little as street musicians[...]
Heh. I'd like to point out that one of my previous guitar teachers was/is a street musician who used to earn (he's since moved from the city) significant money performing in Harvard Square. I mean several hundred dollars a night on a hot weekend. He augmented this with cafe, local radio performances, touring, and teaching to earn a very high standard of living. Why? Because he is a damn good musician and performer. The point? I don't think Alan Cox, Linus Torvalds, RMS, or any of the other well known Free Software programmers are going hungry. In fact, I bet that at any time if they wanted to go on holiday they could scrounge up plenty of money to go play in Europe, The Bahamas, or anywhere else fun. This argument is meaningless.
BTW, how did this completely off-topic post get moderated to the top of this discussion? Not a single mention of "if I had to pay for Linux" or "if I couldn't get the source", just an apparently random tribute to a prominent figure in the world of free software.
This is your only valid argument. You know, I really should have tied a closing argument to the question at hand: "Where would Free Software be without Linux," but I thought my point was obvious. I met RMS promoting GNU long before Linux and 386BSD hit the scene... if Linux hadn't taken off because Linus had chosen some lame license, we would all be running GNU/HURD or BSD. Linus got a functional kernel in at the right time, and he chose an open development model that became popular among a large number of developers. But the BSD and HURD scene was moving along too... it was just a matter of time.
However, I didn't make that clear. And I'm not so sure I do deserve a score 5 on that post... honestly, I think Slashdot has been having some serious moderation problems lately because of the expansion of moderation to the general readership community. Too many poorly written, simplistic and politically correct posts have been moderated up to the very top while intelligent off-beat posts lie fallow. I think this is because everyone posts and moderates so quickly that anyone who spends the time to write and edit their post before committing winds up a good hundred messages below -- where no moderators travel. This is a serious problem... maybe the meta moderation system should allow meta moderators to not only value if a given post has been fairly moderated, but also if the total score to a post is reasonable as well. This way meta-moderators who looked at my score 5 and thought that maybe it was scored a bit too high could in some way resolve that problem. Either that or I saw someone suggest that maybe we should hold off on letting moderators score a post for the first 30 minutes or so... I like that idea too.
Why I say "communism" (Score:2)
The core of communism is the coercive redistribution of wealth without regard to your contribution. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. If that doesn't sum up GPL'd software, I don't know what does.
The GPL applies the coercive force of the government (specifically, threat of legal action) to prevent anyone from reusing GPL'd source in anything except other GPL'd software. Thus GPL development is a closed system in which all contribute what they can, all share equally in the product (regardless of contribution), and none can hold back his own work for profit.
BTW, I'm not a fascist, my views are closer to libertarianism and anarchism. I'm not against sharing, I'm against coercively and deceptively leveraging others' work to further your political ideals against their own best interests. I'm against newspeak where "free" means "you have to give your work away, too."
My gifts don't come with strings attached.
Re:GPL evil? (Score:2)
Your theology is horribly flawed. We are indeed directed to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That is nearly diametrically opposite to forcing others to do what we want them to do. Coercion is not free-will. Without free will, there is no chance for goodness, nor for any choice whatsoever.
Little case study: I give my car to my buddy for the weekend. I tell him:"Give it back to me Sunday night because I need to drive to work with it Monday morning. And, BTW, don't drive drunk. If you wreck the car I'll come after you." I just coerced my buddy and seriously curtailed his free will. What about his free will to keep the car for a week ? What about his free will to get wasted, drive the car into a tree and smile ? I am such a tyrant.
The GPL is nothing like that. It is not a free gift, being kind and generous and decent even to those who use those gifts in ways that the doner disapproves of.
I still think that any code I write belongs to me. So I get to say what people can do with it. The GPL sets forth rules that protect my minimal interests: you can play with it, you can poke at it, you can change it, but no thanks, you cannot take the rights away from others that I just gave you. I'd call that ingratitude. And what's wrong with putting in writing that you expect a little bit of gratitude ?
Re:Oh God, yes, another one! (Score:2)
I wouldn't go that far as in saying RMS was (basicly) responcible for the success of BSD. RMS says GNU/Linux because Linux relies on GNU code to function, while BSD relies on BSD code, and includes GNU tools for comfort, not for a usable system. I would definately say that GCC has been one of FSF's most useful tool for UNIX users, and likely helped BSD by a great deal too. FSF was well known when the BSDL was created, and Bill Joy does talk a little about how the BSDL was made freer than the GPL because of knowing about FSF. If RMS had not created FSF, the question should be how far would Open Source be today? Would other open source licenses exist, and be of such impact as BSD and the GPL?
I think 386BSD and later BSD OSes, and programs (like sendmail and apache) would still thrive, but not as strongly without FSF's contributions. The early work of FSF was important for all open source groups, but some have relied on it more than others.
Re:99% of Linux users could care less. (Score:2)
You've underestimated this by a couple of orders fo magnitude. There's probably at least 10 times this many I would estimate 500-1000 _serious_ developers, and I think that's a low-ball estimate. To start with, every Windows developer out there has run into at many of the unresolved bugs in the MS Knowledge Base. All of them have at least one pet peeve. Remember, these are people who code for a living. I can't imagine that they wouldn't, in their spare time, start to look over the source and find the bit that's bugging them.
Granted, a lot of Windows developers out there are Visual Basic programmers, and VB is not initially conducive to a deep understanding of the Win32 API. However, those who've been doing VB for a living for a couple of years realize that VB makes doing 95% what you want Real Easy (tm). The other 5% would be hard regardless of the language; this forces you to either forego functionality and code pure VB (wimps!) or delve into the API and C/C++.
I think the fact of the matter is that if MS went whole hog and said "All extant MS software is now licensed under the GPL - here's the source", there'd be some serious work going on. Windows could probably even be improved beyond the level of Linux. HOWEVER, this is not real likely to happen, first because MS is NOT going to liberate Windows, and second because the closed-source mentality has pervaded the MS development community. I don't think most MS developers would be inclined to share their fixes with the world, and the MS development community is large enough that I don't think the GPL could realistically be enforced.
A non-coder's perspective (Score:2)
Encourages programming freedom (Score:2)
I can live with that. I think it's a very serious concern to have the everpresent potential of forkin' corporations around trying to influence things in greedy ways and cause confusion and intentional incompatibility, but I can't deny that personally I'd be with Stallman, sharing information, so his view that free cooperation will beat unfree manipulation is something I can happily strive to _make_ realistic. That is, after all, what I want to do with my life, so what's the big disaster if it's not being done in a protected environment? Might as well just work to prove Stallman right, rather than work to keep corporations from abusing the GPL system in an inefficient way.
Newspeak (Score:2)
That is the current situation of corporate programming. The fellow being sued because the contents of his mind belong to the company is a Texan who had a bright idea at home, and found that he no longer had any right to ideas of his own when they might make the company a profit.
_That_ is what RMS is against. Unless you are some sort of bizarrely anticorporation libertarian, you're arguing for a situation where it's less and less feasible to produce 'gifts' or 'work' unless you align with a powerful entity such as a corporation, which pays you in exchange for using your head as farmland for growing its ideas in- effectively, this viewpoint suggests the next life-form to take over the planet Earth will not be robots or AIs running amok, it will be the collective entity, corporations: legally given the status of entities, not subject to the same rules as humans, and power-grabbing as fast as they can, with Homo Sapiens Individualus set to go the way of the Neanderthal.
Which is _quite_ a digression, frankly, but it all bears directly upon your views of what freedom is. The GPL and all that goes with it are there for a particular result: in effect, it is for giving the most power to individuals. It did not appear in a vacuum, or from a situation of individuals sharing freely in public domain: while that was happening there was no need for a GPL. Instead, it appeared out of a situation where all development and research HAD BEEN sucked into totally restricted corporate forms. This is simple history, and the seed of the GPL was what happened over LISP machines, a corporate fight over AI that wrecked the MIT AI lab (a haven for public domain), leaving it lifeless. Stallman essentially swore, "never again", and the result became the GPL. It is not for freedom-in-every-sense. It is for freedom-for-individuals-to-hack-together-and-shar
Re:Why I say "communism" (Score:2)
There's nothing the GPL that says you can't sell what you write, but selling a GPL'd product is not a viable source of income. Selling support might be, but not selling that which can be copied freely.