Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 11:43:15 -0700 From: mike allison <mallison@konnections.com> To: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Cc: jack@diamond.xtalwind.net, mark@quickweb.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: On Holy Wars, and a Plea for Peace [sorry Danny, wherever you are, but the title fits]... Message-ID: <335A63C3.C9897D1@konnections.com> References: <199704191714.NAA20555@diazepam.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
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Joel Ray Holveck wrote: > > >> But seriously, the CS departments are where FreeBSD needs to aim its > >> marketing arrows at - learn from the Tobacco companies: get 'em hooked > >> while they're young and they'll be yours for eternity. > > Talk about deja vu all over again, didn't a company named AT&T do this > > with a new product they had called Unix? Anyone know if the tactic > > worked? <G> > > This was before my time, but I thought that was how Unix came into the > popular market. People would use it to do learning, then research, > then commercial applications. > > How come Linux is so well-known? What in its history caused it to > take the spotlight? > > Happy hacking, > piquan Joel: UNIX was introduced basically FREE to universities. After those students left, they took their understanding and love for Unix into the world. AT&T couldn't sell UNIX due to Trade Restrictions and monopoly laws. Eventually they closed up the free distro and made it a Licensed product through one of their subsidiary organizations. Micrsoft rented the code and became a licensed reseller of Unix through Xenix. SCO then took off from MS to handle XENIX completely. NOVELL bought the rights to Unix from AT&T, Bell Labs. FreeBSD was released about that time (well, A Free BSD) but was immediately impounded by NOVELL/Unix Software Labs for carrying proprietary code. (The fixes Berkeley returned to AT&T to wrap into Unix). Thus, the first Free Unix, BSD, fell out of the market. Linux was just emerging at this time and took over in the vaccuum. The *BSDs are actually much more stable and More Real (tm) Unixen than Linux which is, at the kernel, a unique clone. There will soon be a POSIX/Unix compliant Linux, but Caldera will charge upwards or $100 for the distro, as I understand. Anyway, don't quote me on any of this. It get's confusing. SCO now has the original source code rights, having bought them from NOVELL, at least, the last I heard. I don't know who owns UNIX, and I don't care because it belongs to all of us.... -Mike
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