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It was printed in 1994. Linux and BSD (either FreeBSD or 386BSD, I can't recall which) where around, but Open Source (TM) as we now know it wasn't. Other, pro

by spc476 2y ago

It was printed in 1994. Linux and BSD (either FreeBSD or 386BSD, I can't recall which) where around, but Open Source (TM) as we now know it wasn't. Other, proprietary Unix systems were still viable and in use (AIX, IRIX, SunOS/Solaris, HP-UX and SCO just to name a few). Running Unix was not cheap [1]. Most X servers were proprietary and cost money (I had some friends that sold X servers for a variety of OSes and video cards at the time). The criticisms at the time were, in my opinion, decent enough but not enough to stop to duopoly we have now with POSIX and Windows. [1] In college, early 90s---I got to use IRIX on a machine that cost $30,000 in 1991. PCs caught up and past it pretty much by the mid-late 90s. Also, I did some consulting work at a bank which used SCO. They paid God knows how much for every conceivable package available for SCO. The base system? Pretty much just a shell and some commands in `/bin`. Compiler? Pay. Network? Pay. TCP/IP for said network? Pay.

anthk 2y ago
You could use GNU alternatives for that, most people installed GNU coreutils/*utils, Emacs and GCC and I think Irix supported networking and TCP/IP in base without additions. But, yes, the rest of the Unixen were like that if not worse.
- rusk 2y ago
  That’s why we have GNU pretty much. There was a big law suit over twenty years ago about this. SCO were suing anyone that made significant contributions to OSS Unix (eg IBM) and I seem to remember it just kind of petering out. But yeah, Santa Cruz Operation, one of the bigger name back in the day. Not sure why nobody really talks about this any more, it seems like a hugely decisive period in OSS history
- keybored 2y ago
  But GNU is not Unix.
WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
> The base system? Pretty much just a shell and some commands in `/bin`. Compiler? Pay. Network? Pay. TCP/IP for said network? Pay. Vladimir Barmin had a very hilarious writeup about getting SCO to work at all (http://lib.ru/UNIXOID/scomastdie.txt http://lib.ru/UNIXOID/scomastdie.txt, in Russian).
- anthk 2y ago
  No English translation? I refuse to run propietary JS... Edit: links -dump works great piped to translate-shell -no-autorrect -b and less -SR ... links -dump http://lib.ru/UNIXOID/scomastdie.txt | trans -b -no-auto -t en 2> err > crap2.txt
lelanthran 2y ago
>> proprietary systems got killed by open systems and, ultimately, open source. > It was printed in 1994. Linux and BSD (either FreeBSD or 386BSD, I can't recall which) where around, but Open Source (TM) as we now know it wasn't. I think the "open systems" phrase is more important than the "open source" phrase in the GP's comment. In 1994, Unix systems, even though proprietary, were still more open than the competing systems. Sure, it'll be another 5 years or so before the writing was on the wall for all non-FLOSS systems, but in 1994 it was both a) easier and cheaper to get your hands on a Unix system, and b) easier and cheaper to program it. Sure, they weren't open-source, but they were a hell of a lot more open to hacking than the (for example) Lisp systems, or VMS, etc.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Ah that's why Windows and OSX dont exist anymore.
  - lelanthran 2y ago
    > Ah that's why Windows and OSX dont exist anymore. Aren't they even more open than the previous Unix systems used to be?
ahefner 2y ago
"were around". Not "where around". Sorry to nitpick but I've seen this grammatical error in comments here three times just this morning and it begins to grate.

by spc476 2y ago

anthk 2y ago

You could use GNU alternatives for that, most people installed GNU coreutils/*utils, Emacs and GCC and I think Irix supported networking and TCP/IP in base without additions. But, yes, the rest of the Unixen were like that if not worse.

rusk 2y ago
That’s why we have GNU pretty much. There was a big law suit over twenty years ago about this. SCO were suing anyone that made significant contributions to OSS Unix (eg IBM) and I seem to remember it just kind of petering out. But yeah, Santa Cruz Operation, one of the bigger name back in the day. Not sure why nobody really talks about this any more, it seems like a hugely decisive period in OSS history
keybored 2y ago
But GNU is not Unix.

WesolyKubeczek 2y ago

> The base system? Pretty much just a shell and some commands in `/bin`. Compiler? Pay. Network? Pay. TCP/IP for said network? Pay. Vladimir Barmin had a very hilarious writeup about getting SCO to work at all (http://lib.ru/UNIXOID/scomastdie.txt http://lib.ru/UNIXOID/scomastdie.txt, in Russian).

anthk 2y ago
No English translation? I refuse to run propietary JS... Edit: links -dump works great piped to translate-shell -no-autorrect -b and less -SR ... links -dump http://lib.ru/UNIXOID/scomastdie.txt | trans -b -no-auto -t en 2> err > crap2.txt

lelanthran 2y ago

>> proprietary systems got killed by open systems and, ultimately, open source. > It was printed in 1994. Linux and BSD (either FreeBSD or 386BSD, I can't recall which) where around, but Open Source (TM) as we now know it wasn't. I think the "open systems" phrase is more important than the "open source" phrase in the GP's comment. In 1994, Unix systems, even though proprietary, were still more open than the competing systems. Sure, it'll be another 5 years or so before the writing was on the wall for all non-FLOSS systems, but in 1994 it was both a) easier and cheaper to get your hands on a Unix system, and b) easier and cheaper to program it. Sure, they weren't open-source, but they were a hell of a lot more open to hacking than the (for example) Lisp systems, or VMS, etc.

panick21_ 2y ago
Ah that's why Windows and OSX dont exist anymore.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  > Ah that's why Windows and OSX dont exist anymore. Aren't they even more open than the previous Unix systems used to be?

ahefner 2y ago

"were around". Not "where around". Sorry to nitpick but I've seen this grammatical error in comments here three times just this morning and it begins to grate.