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The main reason Linux outcompeted the BSD-descendants is the GPL license. Instead of competing with proprietary extensions on a free base, fragmenting the ecosy

The main reason Linux outcompeted the BSD-descendants is the GPL license. Instead of competing with proprietary extensions on a free base, fragmenting the ecosystem, upstreaming as much work as possible makes economic sense. We can still observe that effect in the Android ecosystem which started out really bad and fragmented and slowly drifts into a more coherent whole, instead of the other way around. Many saw what the UNIX war led to and tended to avoid similar situations. I too liked what the BSD homogenous distribution let to on a technical basis, but the GPL makes sense as long as business cases can be made fit.

masklinn 4y ago
Nah the main reason Linux outcompeted the BSD is that it arrived at exactly the worst moment for the BSDs: USL v. BSDi. This case put a severe pall on the attractiveness of BSDs as they were suddenly in legal jeopardy just at the outset of the UNIX wars and as they were coming into their own. And at the same moment, a cleanroom unix arrived on the market, limited in many ways but safe. The GPL was at best neutral for most users, as can be seen from its adoption (or lack thereof). However the GPL was nowhere near as problematic as “AT&T might get our OS declared illegal”.
- xorcist 4y ago
  Yes, there was that, too. Now I did not mean that the license is of crucial importance to most end users (it might be for some, but likely the other way around as some will prefer the simpler BSD clauses). But it was decidedly important for the business and consulting side to form, and that was hugely where Linux won. Red Hat, Cygnus and the IBM service group took early big bets on Linux, which could not have happened on a product where vendors based their respective offerings on proprietary lock-ins. That drove adoption in banking and defense whose existing UNIX stacks looked increasingly old, which drove a huge industry shift that took the better part of a decade. It used to be quite common to find people arguing that BSD was the more "business friendly" license, which is may be true in some specific ways but tends to miss the bigger picture. The adoption of a mainstream system under GPL license was important. Then the situation was probably different in the web hosting business, in academia, and in other sectors where other factors dominate.

masklinn 4y ago

Nah the main reason Linux outcompeted the BSD is that it arrived at exactly the worst moment for the BSDs: USL v. BSDi. This case put a severe pall on the attractiveness of BSDs as they were suddenly in legal jeopardy just at the outset of the UNIX wars and as they were coming into their own. And at the same moment, a cleanroom unix arrived on the market, limited in many ways but safe. The GPL was at best neutral for most users, as can be seen from its adoption (or lack thereof). However the GPL was nowhere near as problematic as “AT&T might get our OS declared illegal”.

xorcist 4y ago
Yes, there was that, too. Now I did not mean that the license is of crucial importance to most end users (it might be for some, but likely the other way around as some will prefer the simpler BSD clauses). But it was decidedly important for the business and consulting side to form, and that was hugely where Linux won. Red Hat, Cygnus and the IBM service group took early big bets on Linux, which could not have happened on a product where vendors based their respective offerings on proprietary lock-ins. That drove adoption in banking and defense whose existing UNIX stacks looked increasingly old, which drove a huge industry shift that took the better part of a decade. It used to be quite common to find people arguing that BSD was the more "business friendly" license, which is may be true in some specific ways but tends to miss the bigger picture. The adoption of a mainstream system under GPL license was important. Then the situation was probably different in the web hosting business, in academia, and in other sectors where other factors dominate.