Linux came after the BSDs, so you would think the BSDs would have won.
There are many reasons Linux-based systems are generally much more popular than the BSDs in the server and workstation spaces. Here's why I think that happened:
* GPL vs. BSD license. Repeatedly someone in the BSD community had the bright idea of creating a proprietary OS based on a BSD. All their work was then not shared with the OSS BSD community, and the hires removed expertise from the OSS BSD community. In contrast, the GPL forced the Linux kernel and GNU tool improvements to stay in the community, so every company that participated improved the Linux kernel and GNU tools instead of making their development stagnate. This enabled the Linux kernel in particular to rocket past the BSDs in terms of capabilities.
* Bazaar vs. Cathedral. The BSDs had a small group who tried to build things elegantly (cathedral), mostly in "one big tree". GNU + Linux were far more decentralized (bazaar), leading to faster development. That especially applies to the Linux kernel; many GNU tools are more cathedral-like in their development (though not to the extent of the BSDs), and they've paid a price in slower development because of it.
* Multi-boot Installation ease. For many years Linux was much easier to install than the BSDs on standard x86 hardware. Linux used the standard MBR partitioning scheme, while the BSDs required their own scheme that made it extremely difficult to run a BSD multi-boot setup. For many people computers (including storage) were very expensive - it was much easier to try out Linux (where you could dual-boot) than BSDs. The BSDs required an "all-in" commitment that immediately caused many people to ignore them. I think this factor is underappreciated.
* GNU and Linux emphasis on functionality and ease-of-use instead of tiny-ness. GNU tools revel in all sorts of options (case in point: cat has numerous options) and long-name options (which are much easier to read). The BSDs are often excited about how small their code is and how few flags their command lines have... but it turns out many users want functionality. If tiny-ness is truly your goal, then busybox was generally better once that became available circa 1996 (because it focused specifically on tiny-ness instead of trying to be a compromise between functionality and tiny-ness).
Some claim that the AT&T lawsuit hurt the BSDs, but there was lawsuit-rattling for Linux and GNU as well, so while others will point to that I don't think that was serious factor.
An excellent summary. I think by the late 90s BSD could operate cleanly alongside Windows but by then Linux had become the default "free" *nix choice.
For me, I ran FreeBSD for about a year around 1999. I lasted about a week before breaking down and installing a GNU userspace. Excellent CLI ergonomics for the day.
Linux had quite a few "easy to install" distros where, if your critical hardware was fully supported, you had something that was easier to get up and running than Windows 95/98. X configurations and sound drivers were a sticking points back then though. BSD had no such "easy mode" gateway drugs.
No, by the late 90s BSD had dominated the hosting world because the TCP/IP stack allowed better scaling on the same hardware. Tons of ISPs ran nothing but FreeBSD.
> Some claim that the AT&T lawsuit hurt the BSDs, but there was lawsuit-rattling for Linux and GNU as well, so while others will point to that I don't think that was serious factor.
The SCO lawsuit was a joke and everyone knew it. A bare shell of a company, a mere coat rack they could hang a lawsuit on, was going up against IBM with evidence it wouldn't even release for an embarrassingly long period of time, and when it did, it was laughed out of Slashdot and Groklaw. Microsoft really didn't get its money's worth out of that little venture.
As for lawsuits against GNU, I don't know of any off the top of my head. Can you name one?
By the time things like the SCO lawsuit happened, Linux already had the momentum and corporate financial backing so it could weather it. Had that lawsuit happened in the early days, history would have likely played out differently. (i.e. imagine you were in college getting sued by AT&T over a project that barely anyone had heard about... I suspect most would decide to find a different hobby project)
When the AT&T lawsuit happened it had the direct effect of steering people from *BSD to Linux at a critical time for both, so I'd say that it was definitely a factor.
Some claim that the AT&T lawsuit hurt the BSDs, but there was lawsuit-rattling for Linux and GNU as well
Do you mean the SCO lawsuit against IBM? Because I would argue that 1) that happened long enough after Linux had established itself that people were too invested to be immediately scared off and 2) people put a lot of faith in IBM and there legal team to defend Linux. I think the community around Linux was able to basically laugh the whole thing off once SCO started presenting their actual "evidence".
Without a large company to defend it and the fact that no one had really started using it for anything serious yet made the AT&T lawsuit against the BSD's look a lot scarier at the time.
All good points by the way, but I do think AT&T rattling their sword did have a pretty chilling effect on BSD adoption as well.
I meant the USL vs. BSDi case. That case was, of course, focused on the BSDs. While GNU and Linux were independently implemented, I recall there being some claims at the time that the USL vs. BSDi case also implicated GNU and Linux.
The SCO vs. Linux/IBM/the universe travesty that attacked Linux came a little later; that started in 2003 and seems to never really end. There were also legal accusations around that time (circa 2004) about Linux raised by Kenneth Brown (from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution). Both were focused on Linux and not on BSD, and both failed to slow down Linux.
Reasonable people can definitely disagree on whether or not the USL vs. BSDi legal case seriously impacted BSD adoption as compared to Linux. I don't think it was a key factor in the long run. The USL vs. BSDi case was raised in 1992, and resolved in 1994, so the legal issues didn't stick around very long. In addition, the BSDs had a head start and plenty of time to recover after the legal issues were resolved... if legal issues were the only problem. But again, reasonable people can disagree. We'll need two universes, where it did and did not occur, to really answer the question :-).
I meant the part where he mentioned but there was lawsuit-rattling for Linux and GNU as well.
I don’t remember anything before SCO so I was curious if there was something before that I missed.
I must admit I was downright obsessed with that case and Groklaw’s coverage at the time so I guess it’s not surprising that it was the first thing I thought of...
That's the first time I've ever heard GNU associated with the bazaar. The original thesis of the book (CatB) is the observation that GNU is a cathedral (with saint rms at its head) and Linux (the kernel) is a bazaar.
Yes, that's what I meant. It's true that many GNU projects were (and are) cathedrals, but their cathedrals were more like a bazaar compared to the BSDs. GNU projects tend to be run mostly-independently, but the BSDs were (and are) maintained as entire monoliths... kind of the ultimate cathedral approach. And while cathedrals are beautiful, they take hundreds of years to build, and that's a problem in the software development world.
There are many reasons Linux-based systems are generally much more popular than the BSDs in the server and workstation spaces. Here's why I think that happened:
* GPL vs. BSD license. Repeatedly someone in the BSD community had the bright idea of creating a proprietary OS based on a BSD. All their work was then not shared with the OSS BSD community, and the hires removed expertise from the OSS BSD community. In contrast, the GPL forced the Linux kernel and GNU tool improvements to stay in the community, so every company that participated improved the Linux kernel and GNU tools instead of making their development stagnate. This enabled the Linux kernel in particular to rocket past the BSDs in terms of capabilities.
* Bazaar vs. Cathedral. The BSDs had a small group who tried to build things elegantly (cathedral), mostly in "one big tree". GNU + Linux were far more decentralized (bazaar), leading to faster development. That especially applies to the Linux kernel; many GNU tools are more cathedral-like in their development (though not to the extent of the BSDs), and they've paid a price in slower development because of it.
* Multi-boot Installation ease. For many years Linux was much easier to install than the BSDs on standard x86 hardware. Linux used the standard MBR partitioning scheme, while the BSDs required their own scheme that made it extremely difficult to run a BSD multi-boot setup. For many people computers (including storage) were very expensive - it was much easier to try out Linux (where you could dual-boot) than BSDs. The BSDs required an "all-in" commitment that immediately caused many people to ignore them. I think this factor is underappreciated.
* GNU and Linux emphasis on functionality and ease-of-use instead of tiny-ness. GNU tools revel in all sorts of options (case in point: cat has numerous options) and long-name options (which are much easier to read). The BSDs are often excited about how small their code is and how few flags their command lines have... but it turns out many users want functionality. If tiny-ness is truly your goal, then busybox was generally better once that became available circa 1996 (because it focused specifically on tiny-ness instead of trying to be a compromise between functionality and tiny-ness).
Some claim that the AT&T lawsuit hurt the BSDs, but there was lawsuit-rattling for Linux and GNU as well, so while others will point to that I don't think that was serious factor.
Here's one article discussing this:
https://www.channelfutures.com/open-source/open-source-histo...