Well, well, well, so Linux has turned 20 at last. While we were reading about the inroads Android is making into the mobile market and weeping over the news that Groklaw is about to pack its bags and move on, we began wondering: Just what would the world have been like if Linus Torvalds hadn’t sat down and written Linux? For one thing, Microsoft would be poorer. It’s raking in the shekels on Linux patents and filing suit against various companies over Android, a Linux variant. Apple would rule the mobile world.
Interesting post, but I have one question- Had Linux not been created, would something else have come along to start the revolution?
Before Linux, there was BSD Unix whose unencumbered portions had already been released as Open Source. Linus himself has been quoted that had 386BSD been around, he probably wouldn't have created Linux and many of the web's early successes were not built on Linux but on FreeBSD.
My gut thinks that, in a world without Linux, history would have played out much the same just based around different individuals.
Thank God for geeky Finnish boys? Or, just thank God that not all geeks are American. I don't have many real heros, but Linus comes really close to qualifying!
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Life in a Linux-less World
Posted by: Richard Adhikari April 29, 2011 05:00 AMWell, well, well, so Linux has turned 20 at last. While we were reading about the inroads Android is making into the mobile market and weeping over the news that Groklaw is about to pack its bags and move on, we began wondering: Just what would the world have been like if Linus Torvalds hadn’t sat down and written Linux? For one thing, Microsoft would be poorer. It’s raking in the shekels on Linux patents and filing suit against various companies over Android, a Linux variant. Apple would rule the mobile world.
Before Linux, there was BSD Unix whose unencumbered portions had already been released as Open Source. Linus himself has been quoted that had 386BSD been around, he probably wouldn't have created Linux and many of the web's early successes were not built on Linux but on FreeBSD.
My gut thinks that, in a world without Linux, history would have played out much the same just based around different individuals.