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

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 09:47:34AM -0500, Alvin Starr wrote:
> 
> If I remember correctly BSDI was selling their variant until long after
> linux caught on.
> Remember the first distributions showed up in 1992 and we were building some
> small in house systems based on SLS and Yggdrasil at Siemens around that
> time.
> 
> I could never prove it but my belief is that BSDI would have continued to
> sell their Unix if it were not for Linux.
> Bill Jolitz may have taken a run at a free system with his bsd variant but
> its not clear what would have happened with the various law suits floating
> around at that time.when we did some business with him a few years before he
> was very sensitive to the AT&T lawyers and was careful to insure source code
> did not leak out.
> 
> I doubt that an established company would have brought out a free operating
> system just because the conventional wisdom was and still is that you need
> to protect your intellectual property and giving it away is madness.
> 
> Almost all the original free software came from individuals or very small
> groups.
> I would bet that if Linus Torvalds knew how big linux were to become he
> would have licensed it some how.

I don't know if he would have.  He obviously (as per the original
announcement) didn't think it would ever be anything other than a fun toy.

-- 
Len Sorensen