Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 22:13:14 +0200 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: 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: <19970419221314.BY01182@uriah.heep.sax.de> In-Reply-To: <199704191714.NAA20555@diazepam.gnu.ai.mit.edu>; from Joel Ray Holveck on Apr 19, 1997 13:14:47 -0400 References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970419022523.9302E-100000@zeus.xtalwind.net> <199704191714.NAA20555@diazepam.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
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As Joel Ray Holveck wrote: > How come Linux is so well-known? What in its history caused it to > take the spotlight? If you ask me: the same thing that made 386BSD slip out of Bill Jolitz's fingers. By the time this happened (1992/1993), the discrepancy between an evolving and getting cheaper hardware basis, and the typical CP/M clone running on most of these machines, with all its deficiencies, generated a huge demand for a cheap (DOS was basically for free on most of these machines, since you've got it when buying the box), yet powerful operating system. Remember, the 386 was widely available, and it's probably the first thing out of the house of Intel that deserves the term `processor'. When i first read my 386 reference book (coming from both, a Z80 and a PDP-11 background), i said to myself: ``Gee, it's getting a real CPU now you can do something with.'' The memory and disk prices fell into a range where it was feasible to have a 4 MB machine at home, with a 200 MB disk that was useful to keep the source of your operating system around, too. As for the relative success of Linux over *BSD later, i think two factors are involved: the uncertainty caused by AT&T suing BSDi, as well as Bill Jolitz's dismissal as the leading head of 386BSD (with its well-known consequences). It looks to me as if Bill never ever intended such a degree of success as a production-level operating system, but he was rather headed for a small, understandable platform for operating system teaching and experiments. He simply couldn't make it up with handling the massive feedback from all over the world, and if you look today how many co-operating people it requires who devote their time into these systems, you realize that it's probably too heavy for a single person. Bill however is known as somebody who is not a very good team player (at least that's the picture i've got in mind). -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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