this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I've read Linus's book several years ago, and based on that flimsy knowledge on back of my head, I don't think Linus was really competing with anyone at the time. Hurd was around, but it's still coming soon(tm) to widespread use and things with AT&T and BSD were "a bit" complex at the time.
BSD obviously has brought a ton of stuff on the table which Linux greatly benefited from and their stance on FOSS shouldn't go without appreciation, but assuming my history knowledge isn't too badly flawed, BSD and Linux weren't straight competitors, but they started to gain traction (regardless of a lot longer history with BSD) around the same time and they grew stronger together instead of competing with eachother.
A ton of us owes our current corporate lifes to the people who built the stepping stones before us, and Linus is no different. Obviously I personally owe Linus a ton for enabling my current status at the office, but the whole thing wouldn't been possible without people coming before him. RMS and GNU movement plays a big part of that, but equally big part is played by a ton of other people.
I'm not an expert by any stretch on history of Linux/Unix, but I'm glad that the people preceding my career did what they did. Covering all the bases on the topic would require a ton more than I can spit out on a platform like this, I'm just happy that we have the FOSS movement at all instead of everything being a walled garden today.
386BSD was not available until some months after Linux was released, so you had GNU with no working kernel and BSD not yet available on the hardware he had, hardware a lot of normal people had. I think the GPL also felt more philosophically right to many of them, and it limited how much they needed to re-do work that someone else had already done but kept secret.
The AT&T lawsuit definitely hampered BSD growth just as it was ported to the 386, but it was filed after Linux was already a thing.