Not sure I buy all this...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| phsolide Oct 30, 2008 11:49 AM EDT |
I'm not at all sure I buy this line. I've had Internet email access since around 1989 (worked at a defense contractor back then), and a "Nyx" account (which ran 2.9BSD on a PDP-11!?!) from around 1989 too. I signed up with "Colorado SuperNet" in 1991 or 1992. It was the first commercial "ISP" in Colorado, and they used Sun SPARCStation 10s and 20s (running SunOS 4.1.3, as I recall). I had a shell account, and UUCP email to my house by 1992. While all of this was Unix of one flavor or another, none of it was linux. By 1994, the old AT&T (not the re-branded Southwest Bell) did "WorldNet", their stupid on-line service, on Windows NT. Between AOL, CompuServe, WorldNet and Digex, none of them used Unix or Linux significantly. Note that the really severe early spam problems all came from NT-based ISPs (well, and Uunet, but that was because of their lack of moral fiber). They were at the mercy of MSFT for fixing security problems, and back then, MSFT was in severe denial: After all, NT was the Most Secure System Ever, and the Best Designed System Ever. |
| azerthoth Oct 30, 2008 6:04 PM EDT |
I would say that, it would be a different internet, with MS lock in all over it, but as the internet existed before linux, the answer is self evident. |
| jdixon Oct 30, 2008 8:39 PM EDT |
A more convincing case can be made the Linux would not exist without the Internet. |
| tuxchick Oct 30, 2008 9:27 PM EDT |
Yes, I think jdixon is right. Ew I just gave myself the willies thinking of the root DNS servers running on some flavor of Windows...eeee..... |
| dinotrac Oct 30, 2008 10:52 PM EDT |
TC & jdixon -- One word: FreeBSD. Linux filled a niche, then grew to fill others. Were there no Tux Nation, something else would have done the job. |
| NoDough Oct 31, 2008 8:59 AM EDT |
Quoting:Ew I just gave myself the willies thinking of the root DNS servers running on some flavor of Windows...eeee.....Personal computers would have happened with or without Windows. Windows just happened to be there to fill the vacuum. Similarly, the Internet created a vacuum for email servers, dns servers, http servers, etc. Windows already existed. Why did it not fill that vacuum? Simply because the Internet vacuum required a stable, reliable, high-performance operating system. Windows was not capable of filling that vacuum. So, even if Linux hadn't come along, Windows would not (just as it did not) become the defacto standard server. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 31, 2008 9:20 AM EDT |
I was working at NASA when the NSF divested itself of its monopoly on the Internet routing tables in 1992. Three years later, Windows 95 didn't even ship with a TCP/IP stack. Everything was running UNIX, and Sun really was "the Dot in Dot Com". Sun pizza-boxes were everywhere. Some HP/UX systems, Macs were pretty good, they had TCP/IP and various services since I first dealt with them (earlier) in 1992. And yes, BSD. At/around 1995 I was trying to get Solaris86 and one BSD or another running, and it just wasn't working for me. That's when I first tried Linux, after having used SunOS for work for 3 years. Windows was just an add-on, in terms of the 'Net. But what MS did was create a huge base of relatively identical _clients_. This did ease adoption, since there was only one platform to support, one set of software to write for clients, etc. Would it have happened as fast without Microsoft's marketing power (once they quietly added the BSD TCP/IP software to Windows)? Not likely. But just like James J. Hill and the Great Northern transcontinental railroad, there _would_ have been an Internet without Windows. It just might have taken a bit longer, a bit less explosive, a bit more interesting path to get there. Much like now compared to 1999. Different. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 31, 2008 9:22 AM EDT |
Ooops, got off on the wrong tack. Yes, everything would have existed without Linux. Linux is just another UNIX in terms of function. What wouldn't exist is US. BSD? Maybe, who can say. Maybe Coherent UNIX, which I was looking at buying before finding Linux. http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005101323... |
| jdixon Oct 31, 2008 12:23 PM EDT |
> Personal computers would have happened with or without Windows. The personal computer was alive and flourishing even before the IBM PC. Apple, Tandy, Commodore, Amiga, et.al., were all in the market. What the IBM PC did was standardize the market (unfortunately, on an inferior chipset, the Motorola processors were far better than the Intel ones at the time). |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 31, 2008 4:36 PM EDT |
If GNU/Linux hadn't gotten so big so fast, the BSD projects could've filled the gap. |
| jdixon Oct 31, 2008 5:24 PM EDT |
> ...the BSD projects could've filled the gap. And, as I understand it, probably would have except for the AT&T lawsuit. That slowed the BSD's down enough for Linux to get started. |
| herzeleid Oct 31, 2008 6:04 PM EDT |
> What wouldn't exist is US. BSD? Maybe, who can say. Maybe Coherent UNIX, which I was looking at buying before finding Linux. I was looking at coherent in 1993, and I was about to shell out 100 bucks for a pretend unix without networking, X windows or development tools. Then I heard about that linux thing, and never looked back. I think coherent has fared no better than minix, if even. The *bsds were the best and most mature unix on intel at the time. If there were no linux, most of the linux devs would very likely be working on bsd - and either solaris or bsd would likely be the de facto internet server OS. |
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