Comment Re:bsd didn't capture new users' interest (Score 2) 690
I think there are two reasons it didn't snowball. The first was, BSD was aleady well done, a lot of really good work had already gone into by the time it developers got to it. Linux was still a bit raw, which led to people poking around in it.
Linux played catchup with BSD for quite a while. They clearly run neck and neck now. But lots of people like one camp over the other. I think both the BSD and Linux camps have lots of good developers working them both, and it will be intersting to see hat will happen in the next two or three years, neither is going away, but will industry embrace the GPL? It does seem unlikely to me.
Personally since I learned about BSD OS's when I was in school I like them better than Linux ones. But I guess if I had to choose today which one I was going to install on a machine I could pretty much pick and choose. Lots of schools now teach Linux instead of BSD, in the OS classes. Some of them still teach Minix (if you want to read something entertaining you should try to find the thread of Torvalds and Tannenbaum discussing the merits of a monolithic vs a micro kernel.)
I think overall the major difference in BSD vs Linux is Torvalds. One intelligent, well spoken, until recently, accessable individual has made all the difference in the world. Even now he remains a powerful voice in support of it, and he plays well in the papers. He is less important now than he was earlier, but don't discount his influence, there were a LOT of good alternative OS's out at about the same time.
Jer,
Linux played catchup with BSD for quite a while. They clearly run neck and neck now. But lots of people like one camp over the other. I think both the BSD and Linux camps have lots of good developers working them both, and it will be intersting to see hat will happen in the next two or three years, neither is going away, but will industry embrace the GPL? It does seem unlikely to me.
Personally since I learned about BSD OS's when I was in school I like them better than Linux ones. But I guess if I had to choose today which one I was going to install on a machine I could pretty much pick and choose. Lots of schools now teach Linux instead of BSD, in the OS classes. Some of them still teach Minix (if you want to read something entertaining you should try to find the thread of Torvalds and Tannenbaum discussing the merits of a monolithic vs a micro kernel.)
I think overall the major difference in BSD vs Linux is Torvalds. One intelligent, well spoken, until recently, accessable individual has made all the difference in the world. Even now he remains a powerful voice in support of it, and he plays well in the papers. He is less important now than he was earlier, but don't discount his influence, there were a LOT of good alternative OS's out at about the same time.
Jer,
