First open source OS

[Bob Keyes]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2001 richb at pioneer.ci.net wrote:

> GAF wrote:
> > They state thet Linux is the first completely open source operating system.
> > I think they are wrong on a couple of counts. FreeBSD predates Linux, but
> > was kind of overshadowed by the AT&T lawsuit.
>
> I'm not too sure about that.  I brought up Linux in December 1992 and I
> don't recall FreeBSD being completely open at that point--you still had to
> use some AT&T proprietary code to get it up and running.  I chose Linux
> over FreeBSD at the time because of that, and because of the active
> newsgroups which seemed to have more momentum at the time.  FreeBSD's
> popularity surged in 1994 or thereabouts.

This all depends on what you think of as "Open Source". Unix was
originally distributed in source form, and I believe it was for free, but
the licensing terms were muddy. The result of which was the BSD Unix in
1978, and resultant lawsuits later on. BSD4.4 had all the original Unix
code replaced, and was released in 1992. By this time, Linux was already
rolling (I installed it in the summer of 92). BSD4.4 code was more
complete and robust but hardly workable for home PCs of the time. It was a
'reference implementation'. From this BSD386 cam and went, and FreeBSD and
NetBSD sprung from (OpenBSD started as a fork of NetBSD).

Linux was notable because it was the first kernel under the GPL (I think)
to be released (Mach was finally released recently). The Linux kernel
spurred further development of GPL/BSD tools and applications to replace
other programs that had less acceptable licensing. Much of this work was
done by GNU, hence some people call it "GNU/Linux".

Linux was also notable in that the early BSDs required a math coprocessor,
and all I had was a 386sx16, so it was Linux or bust. Interestingly
enough, Alan Cox chose to install Linux for the same reason!

-bob