[TUHS] If not Linux, then what?

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 05:27:14PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 5:14 PM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:
> 
> >
> > https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/08/26/0051234/celebrating-the-28th-anniversary-of-the-linux-kernel
> >
> > Leaving licensing and copyright issues out of this mental exercise, what
> > would we have now if it wasn't for Linux? Not what you'd WANT it to be,
> > although that can add to the discussion, but what WOULD it be?
> >
> > I'm not asking as a proponent of Linux. If anything, I was dragged
> > kicking and screaming into the current day and have begrudgingly ceded
> > my server space to Linux.
> >
> > But if not for Linux, would it be BSD? A System V variant? Or (the
> > horror) Windows NT?
> 
> BSD was in decent enough shape at the time to run on PCs. Though it
> fragmented early through no fault of Linux. And the AT&T lawsuit created a
> lot of FUD in the area without actually protecting System V. It's unclear
> if another thing would have popped up to fill the void... Linux flourished
> in the confusion, but without it, it's hard to know if something else would
> have been developed before the AT&T lawsuit settled.

I've always wondered what would have happened if Sun had open sourced
SunOS, I think it stood a pretty good chance of winning.  Shoulda,
woulda, coulda.