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SubjectRe: Ken Thompson interview in IEEE Computer magazine (fwd)
alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox)  wrote on 05.05.99 in <m10f1EJ-0007TwC@the-village.bc.nu>:

> > AT&T's lawsuit that delayed the release of 4.4BSD certainly gave
> > Linux an opportunity to compete more seriously against free BSD
> > UNIX derivatives. If a BSD for Intel systems had existed sooner
> > then even Linus admitted that Linux would probably not exist now.
>
> Your chronology is wrong there

Well, it pretty much describes why *I* am running Linux.

> The lawsuit was some time after this. About 0.96 if I remember

Well, I didn't consider Linux really usable before about that time. And
neither BSD.

I think I had already given up on Minix (after hearing Tanenbaum refuse to
add message queues so we could get rid of several *really* hairy corners,
with potential deadlocks and violating module boundaries and stuff - our
views on simplicity were *really* incompatible), and was hoping for BSD to
"grow up". Except there was the law suit, and Linux grew up faster.

And I was pondering writing my own, but I didn't. I think I did have some
rudimentary switch-to-protected-mode-and-print-some-characters code ...
;-)

> Microsoft and the overchargning Unix vendors certainly created the climate
> for Linux, but I think backlash is way inaccurate. Sadly it and "religion"
> are becoming a little too accurate nowdays.

Partly because the M$ problem is getting more acute these days. Except for
DOS 4, not even M$ manages to completely fsck up a piece of software that
small (though when I think of the stack of install disks for DOS 6 -
*shudder*), but when NT 5 is about the size of MVS (heretofore one of the
most bloated systems around), and has the typical quality of M$ software
... I guess some people feel strangled. Sometimes I do, too.

MfG Kai

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