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Comment by imglorp | Hacker News Reader

Sarcasm noted, but think back to 1991. We had a half dozen mostly incompatible desktop OS's and around a dozen Unix-like variants (mac, pc, amiga, cpm, etc), mostly with proprietary hardware (hpux, aix, sun, apollo, dg, dec, etc). The internet and decent interop protocols were just getting started. Remember DCE and RCP? Bleh).

Linux now runs on almost _all_ of those with a mostly compatible API and ABI, from raspi to Z-mainframe, speaks to hundreds of weird hardwares, and hundreds more network protocols built in.

I'd say it was instrumental.

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So does BSD though. To my mind it's accidents of history (in particular the AT&T lawsuit) that lead to Linux being the thing, and if it hadn't been Linux it would've been something else. (Indeed I believe Torvalds said that if 386BSD had been going around Helsinki at the time there would never have been a Linux).

True. If it wasn't for the license war between AT&T and BSD we would live in a parallel universe where everyone is running FreeBSD everywhere.

Kind of cool how randomness creates forks in time.

Absolutely true about the war that lead to the Linux mainstreaming.

And btw, is there a list of such points in computing history, where a slightly small change in a decision would have lead to a different computing environment ( i.e. "forks in time") ? This would be a very good read. And a nice practical introduction of chaos theory.

One such moment was when IBM decided to sign the deal with Microsoft, giving them exclusive license on operating systems for IBM PC. As someone put it: Were there one person with a brain at IBM to proof-read that deal, Microsoft would never become such a big company as it is today. But there wasn't any, so we ended up with Windows at 95% of PCs worldwide.

lets be clear, the impact of linux has been great, in many ways. I compiled my first linux kernel in 1994, and I don't think I'd be the developer I am today without having had access to and experience with Linux. But come on, the tenor and tone of the parent comment is incredibly myopic, ignoring decades of legacy that Linux imitated. Its also a bit much to attribute the trend of hardware compatibility and binary independence (which is quite a bit sketchier IMO) to Linux. This was a trend that has been ongoing for years, and would have without the introduction of linux. TBH we probably have Microsoft to thank for that more than anyone, by setting expectations across the consumer market that hardware be mostly-compatible with an OS.

I think you're reading too much into the comment. Your argument is that they're ignoring history. Just because there was something before Linux doesn't mean Linux hasn't changed things. The point about Linux seems valid to me, seeing as it's the dominant kernel in nearly every market.

You go on to praise Windows, as if it's okay to ignore history when it comes to MS.

Eh... I think people in HN get overly offended when people state the fact that Linux has been historically revolutionary.

> seeing as it's the dominant kernel in nearly every market.

That's disingenuous, not every market has the same weight. Microsoft owns the desktop market, and there are many countries where it also owns the enterprise/server market.

> people in HN get overly offended when people state the fact that Linux has been historically revolutionary

There is a big difference between saying "Linux was revolutionary" (considering the impact it had, absolutely true), and "Linux was revolutionary from a technical standpoint" (it wasn't).

How was linux revolutionary? Unices had been around for years before that, and IIRC even the choice of a monolithic kernel vs a microkernel architecture was seen as a somewhat conservative choice. Culturally, its not like free software hadnt been a movement for a decade already. IMO Linux's place in history was accidental, occuring because of the confluence of a number of external factors and trends. As another poster noted, if it hadn't been Linux, it would have been BSD or something else entirely. (All of which is not to downplay the value and contributions that Linux did make. But lets keep it in perspective.)

It's rather difficult to read too much into an unequivocal all-encompassing statement that "Linux made everything possible.".

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