Nobel Peace Prize to Linus Torvalds: A Northwest Nobel option?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:54:53PM -0500, Christopher Browne wrote:
> Yes, had Linux not been "available enough," then they might have put a
> higher priority on Hurd.  It languished for quite a long time because
> Mach wasn't quite available/usable.

Funny how the academic circles were so into microkernels at that time
(I haven't paid attension to what they favour now).  Microkernels haven't
ever worked in real life as far as I can tell, only ever in theory.
They certainly don't seem to help get things done and working anytime
soon.

> Mind you, it could also be that without Linux, there mightn't have
> been a GPL-licensed kernel, and the FSF might have become more of a
> historical curiosity, as once the BSD folk got out from under the
> cloud of the AT&T lawsuit, a lot of the people interested in a "free
> Unix" would have headed in their direction instead of towards Linux.
> 
> I subscribe to the position that there was some "historical
> inevitability," that there were a LOT of people keen on having a "free
> Unix," such that if it hadn't been Linux or BSD-386, there were
> certainly other options out there.
> 
> - Coherent wasn't free; it was probably the first most visible
> "casualty" of Linux
> - Minix (still under development!)
> - MiNT (originally: MiNT is Not TOS, later, MiNT is Now TOS)
> - VSTa
> 
> I'm pretty sure that's a desperately incomplete list...

-- 
Len Sorensen
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