Post by J. ClarkePost by a***@math.uni.wroc.plPost by J. ClarkePost by Niklas KarlssonPost by gareth evansMy impression, clearly quite wrong, was that LINUX
was little more than a vehicle for launching programs,
ie, an uppity MSDOS, but with provision for multi-tasking
(multi-programming?)
Not to mention vastly better memory management.
Calling LINUX "an uppity MSDOS", is kind of like calling MSDOS a
"crippled Unix".
LINUX provided pretty much the full functionality of the UNIX kernel,
which had up until that time been the missing piece for an open source
UNIX clone. Prior to that time, any UNIX implementation that was full
enough to be useful for anything beyond recreational and student use
used AT&T licensed code and the license could be quite costly.
Before Linux were Minix,
Linux started out as a rewrite of Minix to address its shortcomings.
This is rather inprecise. Minix had its shortcomings. I am not
aware of serious use of Minix, but my lack of info does not
prove that there were none. Certainly was not replacement for
UNIX(TM) but was solid enough to usable in _some_ serious setups.
Post by J. ClarkeWas a proprietary commercial product. It did not become open source
until 2015, long, long after Linux became well established.
Well, you wrote about AT&T, Coherent was independent developement.
And quite a bit cheaper.
Post by J. ClarkeI was not aware that 386BSD was unencumbered.
You are aware of AT&T versus Berkeley process, arent you? 386BSD
contained code that was released under BSD style licence, most
came from official Berkeley release.
Post by J. ClarkePost by a***@math.uni.wroc.plYour claim
probably is about Minux, but even in this case you exagerate.
So would you have tried to run Amazon on Minix?
There are applications intermediate between running Amazon and
"recreational and student use". One resonable use would be
for lab equipement (AFAIK intersting intrument used to
run UNIX(TM) at that time). Or a machine for few users.
Post by J. ClarkePost by a***@math.uni.wroc.plI used 386BSD and it was quite buggy, but had all what is
needed to run wide variety of useful programs. I never used
Coherent, but given descriptions it is pretty clear that
that Coherent had much more functionality than Linux-0.01.
The difference was that Linux and 386BSD had free licence and
consequently potential to grow.
What part of "open source" are you having trouble with?
I have no trouble with open source. You seem to have trouble
with reading or writing. Is it that hard to write
"I agree" if it is what you mean?
Or maybe you just look for opportunity to start a flame war?
Post by J. ClarkePost by a***@math.uni.wroc.plOne can speculate why Linux
- creator of 386BSD after free realease wanted to switch
to proprietary licence
- famus ATT versus Berkely process
- GPL
but without Linux we would probably live in FreeBSD world.
Or the Unix world would have continued to be fragmented.
--
Waldek Hebisch