...
... Say, that's a
fine article you found there, and maybe LinuxQuestions ought to obtain the rights to include a copy of it somewhere on this site.
You are correct that BSD is more properly a variant of "Unix." (In fact, the Berkeley Software Distribution is one of the
original spin-offs of the original AT&T code.)
To that end, it might be well to say that it is really
Unix, and all of its "variants" or "work-alikes" (using the terms very loosely, so as to include Linux under the same umbrella) are what is most strongly "on the rise" right now. They represent a distinct and important improvement over the past
status quo for reasons including the following:
- Linux, for instance, runs on more than 24 different types of hardware, from a huge IBM mainframe to an iPod or a Palm, from the same source-code base.
- Software built under this suite of tools shares the same cross-platform capabilities, which can have tremendous business advantages. Consider, for example, Apple's ability to "port" their system from the PowerPC chip to the x86 chip, and to maintain the system in both worlds. They did it, on-time, and "by jove, it works!" Given the huge costs of building and maintaining software, coupled with the rapid proliferation of hardware that now needs to run "your program," that alone is a huge big-deal.
- Source-code to the entire systems is openly available, whether for free or as a licensed product, allowing for intimate examination and understanding of exactly how the system works. If you need a change, "you don't need to say 'please.'" (You just have to share it.)
- Cooperative development by a worldwide community of highly skilled developers, who are not constrained by short-term market profit requirements and are thus able to build a system for their mutual benefit and in an unprecedented short time. Linus famously started the ball rolling, and thousands of others have helped build it and push it along since then.
- "The whole is [much!] greater than the sum of its parts."
I don't think that we necessarily need to decry Microsoft's efforts, nor those of any other "proprietary closed system" vendor, but
this approach is unquestionably better, particularly for the core "operating-system | compiler | system-library" suites upon which
all other software so critically depends. This business-model, being equally valid although unconventional, produces demonstratedly superior results, much faster.
No matter what other journalists or lawyers may say, we are
not going to live in a "closed and secret" universe. Frankly,
we cannot afford to. We can't do what we must do in such a limited world. And, as it has now been demonstrated, we don't
have to. We're going to build competitive advantage, and system security, and intellectual property protection, and everything else ...
openly. It's the only way that these things can get done.
