On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 9:25 PM, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> wrote:

I started screwing around with Linux in the late 90s, and it would be many years before any sort of real Unix (of the AT&T variety), in any form, was readily available to me - that being Solaris when Sun started offering it for free download.

See my comment to Dan. I fear you may not have known where to look, or whom to ask. As I asked Dan, were you not at an university at time? Or where you running a Sun or the like -- i.e. working with real UNIX but working for someone with binary license, not sources from AT&T (and UCB)?

I really am curious because I have heard this comment before and never really understood it because the sources really were pretty much available to anyone that asked. Most professionals and almost any/all university students had did have source access if they ask for it. That is part of why AT&T lost the case. The trade secret was out, by definition. The required by the 1956 consent decree to make the trade secrets available. A couple of my European university folks have answer that the schools kept the sources really locked down. I believe you, I never saw that at places like Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburg, Darmstad or other places I visited in those days in Europe. Same was true of CMU, MIT, UCB et al where I had been in the USA, so I my experience was different.

The key that by definition, UNIX was available and there were already versions from AT&T or not "in the wild." You just need to know where to look and whom to ask. The truth is that the UCB/BSDi version of UNIX - was based on the AT&T trade secret, as was Linux, Minix, Coherent and all of the other "clones" -- aka look-a-likes and man of those sources were pretty available too (just as Minix was to Linus and 386BSD was to him also but he did not know to where/whom to ask).

So a few years later when the judge said, these N files might be tain'ted by AT&T IP, but can't claim anything more. The game was over. The problem was when the case started, techies (like me, and I'm guessing Larry, Ron and other ex BSD hackers that "switched") went to Linux and started to making it better because we thought we going to lose BSD.

That fact is if we had lost BSD, legally would have lost Linux too; but we did not know that until after the dust settled. But by that time, many hackers had said, its good enough and made it work for everyone.

As you and Dan have pointed out, many non-hackers did know that UNIX really was available so they went with Linux because they thought that had no other choice, when if fact, you actually did and that to me was the sad part of the AT&T case.

A whole generation never knew and by the time they did have a choice but a few religion began and new wars could be fought.

Anyway - that's my thinking/answer to Noel's original question.

Of why Linux over the over the PC/UNIX strains... I think we all agree that one of the PC/UNIX was going to be the winner, the question really is why did Linux and not a BSD flavor?