[GTALUG] ​Can the Internet exist without Linux? | ZDNet

[John Sellens]

On Wed, 2016/01/13 12:23:52AM -0500, Alvin Starr <alvin at netvel.net> wrote:
| The problem that the early BSD variants faced was AT&T licensing.
| If there was only BSD around it may have stayed closed for a long time 
| even to today.
| 
| Eventually linux developed enough of a following that the value for 
| AT&T,SCO,Microsoft et al had no real value in trying to hold on to the 
| rights.

I don't think that's a reasonable interpreation of the history.  BSDI and
AT&T settled in 1994, at which point I think it was fair to say that
proprietary UNIX still had significant value.  (Sun machines with Solaris
were a huge part of the internet insfrastructure until the early 2000's -
or later.)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Design


My personal opinion is that if linux didn't exist, FreeBSD would likely be
dominant, and that things would be very similar to what we currently have.


Cheers!

John