IMO, Sun's open source release of OpenWindows was the kick in the butt that allowed Linux to become a "serious" alternative to the Unixes. (It made Linux boxes

IMO, Sun's open source release of OpenWindows was the kick in the butt that allowed Linux to become a "serious" alternative to the Unixes. (It made Linux boxes as X terminals pretty viable, saving tons of money on Hummingbird Xceed licenses!) There weren't many open source windowing/desktop alternatives back then, so having one that had been professionally and well thought-out by the likes of Sun gave Linux a UI that looked and felt like the big guys. (Up until that point, most Linux X environments were just using the painfully minimalist TWM (Tom's Window Manager)).