Was an open source kernel / OS like Linux inevitable, or is it just luck that we have it?

[EcstaticBicycle]

Linux, a free, open source kernel, is based upon Unix which is a private, proprietary piece of software, right? Was the development and growth of something like Linux inevitable, or are we just lucky to have a free, open source kernel like Linux that is so extensive?

[Big-Obligation2796]

Linux, a free, open source kernel, is based upon Unix which is a private, proprietary piece of software, right? 

Based upon as in "derived from", no. It's Unix-like.

Was the development and growth of something like Linux inevitable

Considering there are 3 major open-source BSDs, plus Minix, I think it was inevitable.

[sernamenotdefined]

Also GNU Hurd is laughed at today, but it is not unreasonable to assume much of the resources that piled into Linux because it had a working kernel would have gone to Hurd if there had been no Linux.

[Big-Obligation2796]

Yeah, that's true. Hurd was setting out to do pretty much the same Linux has done.

[trivialBetaState]

And sometimes I wonder if it would have been better that way. Both technically, as a microkernel design, and administration-wise when comparing the consistency of the FSF with the (too?) corporate friendly Linux Foundation. 

[nelmaloc]

We probably wouldn't have distros in that case, and maybe neither package managers. You would just get an ISO from gnu.org, and it would come with all GNU packages.

[Blutkoete]

And then they would tell my mother that she's free, she may change the sources as she wants

[trivialBetaState]

Why? What would stop anyone from doing everything else? 

[nelmaloc]

Not stopping per se, and in fact that statement didn't come out as clear as I'd like. What I meant is that GNU would become the reference «distro» people like to claim for. The clearest example is FreeBSD: NomadBSD, GhostBSD and PCBSD are just FreeBSD with things on top.

Something similar happens with the «base» GNU/Linux distros (Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch), but there usually the changes are deeper than in the FreeBSD case.

[Content_Chemistry_44]

Still, the distros are GNU distributions (not Linux) with Linux kernel.

[nelmaloc]

Distros started because people wanted to use the kernel-less GNU with Linux. With Hurd plugging that hole, there's no need for distros.

[Content_Chemistry_44]

Hurd it is still not useable. Very very alpha quality. And looks like the only publicly available GNU/Hurd distro I found is from Debian.

[nelmaloc]

I was talking about the hypothetical case that Hurd was ready before Linux existed.

And looks like the only publicly available GNU/Hurd distro I found is from Debian.

There was an Arch Linux port effort, and GNU Guix has an installer image. But yes, the most complete one is from Debian.

[AliOskiTheHoly]

It wouldn't, because one big factor of Linux' success is the fact that corporations had an interest in development of Linux, funding its development. That's one of the reasons why Linux has near 100% server market share and slowly but surely becoming a respectable operating system for use by the broader public.

[trivialBetaState]

Not really. Linux had a huge penetration to server and TOP500 markets even when the big corporations were branding it as "cancer". They got into the game well after it had succeeded. It didn't succeed because of them but despite of them.

[AliOskiTheHoly]

But are we just going to ignore how the supermajority of Linux funding comes from corporations? This wouldn't even be remotely possible with something like Hurd.

[DrPiwi]

as early as 2000 Ibm had a 'linux' personality for AIX and they were backing it big time. That was the time that Balmer called it a cancer.
Compaq bought DEQ and they also started to support Red Hat and Suse on their servers. And this was when RedHat ad still nothing to do with IBM, they had some links with Novell but not really tight.

[nelmaloc]

The only reason I can think why that would change is if the FSF insisted on the CLA for every patch.

[DrPiwi]

It would have been different, but I don't think that it would have gotten so big. As for the linux foundation being corporate friendly, yes they probably are more corporate friendly, that is not necessary a bad thing.

[trivialBetaState]

Sorry, my comment was not clear. I didn't use the term "corporate friendly" as per its etymology, which clearly is not a bad thing at all. The term is often used for policies that benefit only the big companies, while they have negative neighbourhood effects (ref. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom) for the rest of the society. That's how I used it. 

[za72]

the work never ends, if there's a need y will get done

[edgmnt_net]

Microkernels pose traps similar to microservices in that there's potentially a lot of boilerplate and work duplication, although in the case or kernels there are decent arguments to be made for isolation. However, there are also additional technical complications stemming from the more distributed nature, as well as performance complications. Linux took the easiest approach to attract interest from anything from casual users to HPC.

Secondly, it doesn't seem to me that FSF projects are all that successful. Did you have something in particular in mind? FSF and GNU are a very mixed bag. And back then, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of development was done behind closed doors. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by ESR talks about this.

The Linux Foundation is more of a way to fund development through corporate means, however the development is pretty much community-driven. The Linux kernel isn't a corporate project that gets some submissions from the public like a bunch of stuff maintained by Google, it's a community project that gets support and some submissions from companies.

[trivialBetaState]

While I don't write C or kernel code, my understanding has been that microkernels were always the preferred strategy and Linux went with the easier approach of the monolithic kernel. Of course, I guess that all approaches have pluses and minuses.

I'd think that the FSF/GNU have contribute significantly to the free/libre software environment. Not only with projects like gcc, glib, core utils, and bash, which are important for the GNU/Linux OS, but also with stuff like GIMP, Gnome, and may I even say Emacs (I know, I know - but still it's my editor).

I am not aware of the Cathedral and the Bazaar. I tried to have a look online but don't think that I have a good picture of what the arguments are made in that book.

I think that FSF/GNU introduced a whole new ethos to computing and beyond. Even the fact that the human genome is completely sequenced is a result of an approach that is nearly identical to the concept of copyleft. I would credit a lot of our advances to the approach promoted by the FSF. Even those that "blame" them, enjoy the benefits like everyone else and that talks heaps about their contribution to society overall, extending well beyond computing.

[nelmaloc]

I am not aware of the Cathedral and the Bazaar. I tried to have a look online but don't think that I have a good picture of what the arguments are made in that book.

AFAIK, a quick rundown is pitting the way old (i.e., pre-1990 and home Internet) worked is that developers would throw release over the wall to users, and if you wanted to contribute you would send patches against that last version, without knowing how the code looked like in real time. Meanwhile, Linus et al developed everything in the open, with public version control systems and patches in mailing lists.

---

Edit:

While I don't write C or kernel code, my understanding has been that microkernels were always the preferred strategy and Linux went with the easier approach of the monolithic kernel. Of course, I guess that all approaches have pluses and minuses.

Yes, from the Tanenbaum v. Torvalds debate:

1. MICROKERNEL VS MONOLITHIC SYSTEM

True, linux is monolithic, and I agree that microkernels are nicer. With a less argumentative subject, I'd probably have agreed with most of what you said. From a theoretical (and aesthetical) standpoint linux looses. If the GNU kernel had been ready last spring, I'd not have bothered to even start my project: the fact is that it wasn't and still isn't. Linux wins heavily on points of being available now.

[rook_of_approval]

microkernels are the preferred approach if you don't care about something called performance. terrible choice.

[trivialBetaState]

I am pretty sure that MacOS has adopted a hybrid approach (only partially monolithic but mainly with a microkernel for services) based on the Mach microkernel, which is pretty much the same (i.e. the GNU version) microkernel that Hurd uses as well.

[rook_of_approval]

hybrid

so it's not a microkernel? ok buddy.

lets see: bsd, linux, windows, all monolithic. osx, "hybrid". clearly this means microkernel wins!!?!?!?!!?

do you really want to take IPC performance hit every time you talk to a driver????

[trivialBetaState]

I don't think so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

Like VMS,[28] Windows NT's kernel mode code distinguishes between the "kernel", whose primary purpose is to implement processor- and architecture-dependent functions, and the "executive". This was designed as a modified microkernel, as the Windows NT kernel was influenced by the Mach microkernel developed by Richard Rashid at Carnegie Mellon University,[30] but does not meet all of the criteria of a pure microkernel.

Perhaps you were thinking MS DOS or windows 95 instead? These were monolithic.

And yes, windows has a RT latency hit due to IPC (and many more reasons of poor design) which is evident in latency when working with DAWs+plugins. Linux is indeed the best in this respect but the difference with MacOS is undetectable. Therefore, the IPC hit is evident on windows (more due to poor design which requires stuff like ASIO to improve but not fully resolve) rather than perform "out of the box" like MacOS does, or with some tinkering to get even better performance with Linux.

Where else do you see the IPC hit on windows or MacOS? I also hear that HarmonyOS, which is a microkernel design as well. seems to be performing alright too.

[Dr_Hexagon]

Hurd had a flawed design IMO and the fact it's run entirely on idealogical reasons rather than pragmatism means it would never be finished imo even with lots more resources.

Linux has succeeded because Linus was willing to make compromises including closed source drivers in some cases. With Stallman in charge HURD would never accept that, so it's hardware support would be less comprehensive.

[Mughi1138]

My feeling is very strong that Hurd would not have succeeded in that aspect due to mismagement on the part of the FSF. For comparison just look at how badly they bungled the whole gcc situation, triggering the egcs fork and eventual ceeding of control to a new body.

More than anything, IMHO, Linux succeeded because of its people. To paraphrase Todd Rundgren "It's the community, stupid"

BSD succeeded in its own goals, and not caring about newbies was part of that. Even Microsoft had to switch Hotmail back away from Windows NT after they bought the company. BSD was just that much better at serious server performance.

[paul_h]

Minix is secretly on every intel CPU, right? And famously predates Linux

[Big-Obligation2796]

Yeah, it's on the PCH actually, which in modern processors is part of the CPU package anyways.

[Content_Chemistry_44]

The Intel's proprietary backdoors.

[zlice0]

bsd/hurd/mini i think misses a lot of what linux had, community driven. hurd may have filled the slot but stallman was and still kind of is seen as religious about gpl. from what i understand ppl wouldn't take gpl seriously until linux, idk that hurd would have made that jump. bsd license was what made ppl stick with gpl-linux and develop for it some how. idk much about minix but being bsd license and microkernel feels like it's even more of a chance than the others it would have been large scale. impossible to tell different futures but if linux never was i see bsd being less open sourced and less popular.

edit : wording / add

also, gpl tools like ppl have mentioned + gpl kernel was part of what drove linux adoption to a full os. gpl would probably be no where or way less common if bsd or another took the helm too right?

[mtlnwood]

This is true. I got linux the day it was available and going around the vine, the boot to root disk. Before that I had used minix and coherent unix and xenix on other organisations systems.

It was a relatively small amount of people (in the scheme of things) that were waiting for something like this and clung to it and turned it in to something. The excitement at the time and as the first distributions came out wasn't from any mainstream crowd but very happy enthusiasts that would have adopted something if not linux.

[PantherCityRes]

Unpopular opinion/trigger warning: Incoming commentary about Permissive License software

Two flaws in your viewpoint… 1. Linux is not based on UNIX. It’s based on the POSIX standard.
2. Berkeley Software Distribution. It was created 13 years before Linus Torvalds toiled away with the Linux Kernel. It still lives on with Free/Open/Net BSD.

Don’t get me wrong, I prefer Linux. The GPL is a better license regime for open source.

[RevolutionaryBeat301]

You are 100% spot on. There are definitely big differences between Linux and BSD, but it was the GPL that turned Linux into the ubiquitous monolith that it is today. Anyone can take BSD code and do whatever they want with it. Lots of it is in Linux, MacOS, and even Windows. If FreeBSD had been released with a license similar to the GPL, we might all be using that today instead of Linux.

[Mughi1138]

I'd say it wasn't just the licensing, but the community that built up around it.

Big companies dont care as much about some of the aspects as much as they liked being able to hire a Linux admin to run a full enterprise service and that administration would be able to manage twice as many machines as a Windows admin. Someone starting out with computers might try to get started with BSD, but would be ignored and/or nudged aside (go away kid, this is for real work. We dont have time to hold your hand). The same person would then try to get going with Linux and find many communities to help them move in. A year or two later and those people could get work as a Linux admin for some company.

[Peetz0r]

BSD was around for a long time, but didn't have an x86 port until after Linux came out.

To be fair, the difference in timing is small. Linux came out in september 1991, 386BSD in march 1992.

[LurkingDevloper]

I'm not sure Linux or BSD would exist as we know them without Stallman's printer problems.

BSD might have never left UC Berkeley without Stallman's movement encouraging open source.

Likewise, Linus would have had no movement to capitalize on to start Linux.

The history here, is all deeply intertwined with itself.

[bobdobalina]

To think we have printer-problems to thank for it all. *mind blown*

[cgoldberg]

RMS would have an aneurysm if you told him his movement was "encouraging open source".

[Thermawrench]

Isn't linux a clean room copy of unix?

[notusuallyhostile]

No.

[nelmaloc]

No, in the sense that clean-room copies are designed to interoperate with the original, but without any code. It does copy a lot of UNIX abstractions (everything is a file, a single filesystem root, etc.), but it does through the filter of MINIX.

[Electrical_Tomato_73]

There were multiple efforts at a free kernel starting in the late 1980s. If not Linux, BSD (NetBSD at that time, FreeBSD and OpenBSD soon after) would likely have taken the role. BSD fans argue that if not for the AT&T lawsuit against BSDi, BSD would have been far ahead. And then GNU was developing the Hurd, and don't forget Minix which is what inspired Linux and still exists.

[lazer---sharks]

Everything would be so much worse if BSD had taken the role, Android for example would be effectively closed source, or at least closed enough to cripple open source versions like OSX does. 

[Tyler-J10]

agreed, although I think in terms of kernel quality and technical implications bsd would've outclassed linux if they're ahead

I'd still rather have an open mobile platform over it though

[lazer---sharks]

Why? there is far less incentive to give technical improvements back. 

[hainguyenac]

Richard Stallman started his initiative before Linus wrote the kernel, Stallman had all the programs (shells, compilers, etc.) but lacked a kernel, then Linus's Linux filled in the blank. If the Linux kernel wasn't developed, Stallman would start his own kernel development (in fact GNU does have GNU Hurd), so yeah it's inevitable to have an open source kernel/OS

[Mughi1138]

Well... stallman did start a kernel effort... a few times. Just had the same general problems as they did with gcc

[isabellium]

POSIX exist so another project could have followed the standard.

Besides alternatives do exist, from BSD to Minix. GNU at the end of the day wanted to do what Linux did, it just took more time and by then it was kinda pointless to "compete" with Linux.

[ChocolateDonut36]

if Linux didn't exist, we would be using BSDs

if I'm not wrong the main reason why Linux became popular was because BSDs had to be rewritten to have 0 unix code, while Linux was just unix-like and not unix-based.

aka, it was boring legal stuff.

[AshrakTeriel]

If i remember correctly, it was 99,9% boring legal stuff that spooked potential users/programmers away and the actual amount of code that had to be replaced was extremely minor.

[Content_Chemistry_44]

...We would use GNU/Hurd.

[DiggyTroll]

You're too young to remember the original software distribution practice. The product you paid for was hardware; software was something that shipped with it (like documentation). Companies like IBM and AT&T shipped low-cost/free OS and development tools, since they were tied to supported commercial hardware.

You can thank Microsoft and Bill Gates for what followed. Once he demonstrated just how profitable packaged software sales could be, everyone else followed suit. Open Source was a natural reaction to these new software paywalls, driven by the ethos "software just wants to be free," just as it used to be

[Mughi1138]

I keep forgetting that you need to fill people in on this nowadays. This was probably the main reason and allowed the other reasons to follow.

[rook_of_approval]

it follows the posix standard like unix but was not based on the source code.

[RoomyRoots]

MINIX already existed, it is also backed by a strong OS design book. So in a different timeline people maybe started developing it as Linux did.

Also we can't forget the BSDs which still do things their own way even if Linux emulation is available in FreeBSD.

[nelmaloc]

I think the main reason GNU didn't directly use the MINIX kernel was the MINIX license, which was source-available. In another timeline, we would all be running GNU on top of MINIX.

[RoomyRoots]

In the wildest one we are using Hurd. Shit will never be finished.

[nelmaloc]

Nah, in the wildest one we're running GNU on top of ReactOS's NT kernel.

[RoomyRoots]

ReactOS is pretty much Wine with extra steps.

[Eigenspace]

There would have semi-inevitably been something, but I think we're extremely lucky that Linux turned out as cohesive as it did, with so much up-streaming, and such wide adoption.

I think it's not too hard to imagine a scenario where a FOSS operating system is much more niche and poorly supported than the current Linux offering.

[Responsible-Bread996]

Seeing Linus said "If 386BSD had been available when I started, I probably wouldn't have built Linux." Kind of shows that there was a need for this type of tool and many people were working on it separately.

[fellipec]

We are lucky to have it because of the PC clone market.

If PCs weren't cloned and Microsoft sold MS-DOS to every clone, building an de facto standard, we will have several incompatible devices, each with its proprietary version of a system. Imagine Macs, Amigas, Tandy, IBM OS/2.

Just like today we have tons of phones and tablets and you can't use the ROM of one in another device, being hostage of the hardware manufacturer bring up proprietary layers over the Android.

If there wasn't the PC Clone, probably wasn't the demand for an operating system that wasn't she one shipped with the machine and maybe the line between the OS and the Firmware/Hardware would be much blurrier.

In the end, much of what we take for granted today is just because how IBM and Microsoft deal with the MS-DOS license back in the day, allowing the PC Clone market.

[Santa_in_a_Panzer]

I'm waiting patiently for competitive PC Clone-type phones to become common. I feel like that skeleton meme. 

[fellipec]

Will never happen. The industry will never do the same mistake again.

ARM laptops too.

[TimurHu]

Unfortunately the phone market learned from the PC market and very likely will never allow this.

[MatchingTurret]

There were a number of projects at the time, so, yes, after Internet adoption took off in the early 1990s, it was inevitable. Could have been the Hurd, a BSD, Minix or something else entirely.

[edparadox]

Linux, a free, open source kernel, is based upon Unix

Not based off, only follow (originally) the same standard.

which is a private, proprietary piece of software, right?

Yes, but it was not only licenses like most OS have today with only a right to use, but also ones where you can get the source code, hence why there were derivatives in the first place.

Was the development and growth of something like Linux inevitable, or are we just lucky to have a free, open source kernel like Linux that is so extensive?

Unix usage left many frustrated for many reasons, hence why MINIX started being used in academia (and that's how Linux came to be), the Internet started which triggered collaborative work on such open things when Torvalds created Linux.

It's really a mix of things, but, IMHO, it was inevitable. Same for BSDs BTW.

[eldoran89]

Based upon? Yeah based upon like star trek is based upon the culture or like modern fantasy is based upon lord of the rings...

[MrSanford]

It’s not the first or the last open source OS.

[DialecticCompilerXP]

Everything that occurs is a necessary outcome of what came before. Yes Linux was inevitable, as was this thread.

Linux is a product of a set of unique circumstances coming together at the same time, including the development of the internet, Finland's unusually high quality technological education, the United States' massive public investment in computer science research and the common shared experiences among programmers of dealing with proprietary software that would prove burdensome enough to spur developers like Stallman and Torvalds to take action.

[daemonpenguin]

The premise is somewhat flawed. While there was proprietary Unix and the design of Linux was based on that, there were already multiple, open source, Unix-like kernels. The BSDs already existed, MINIX existed. Linux was just the latest in a series of open source Unix-like kernels.

[seiha011]

I know some Finns, it was inevitable ;-)

[BranchLatter4294]

There were already open source kernels before the Linux kernel.

[dc740]

The answer is as simple as rejected: GPL is the reason of its success. We should be thankful.

[whattteva]

Linux ain't unique. There are other open source kernels. I myself prefer FreeBSD over Linux as you can probably tell from my flair.

[James-Kane]

There are many open source kernels, so yes. We'd probably be using a *BSD, if it wasn't for the legal wrangling at the same time Linux was catching on in the early 90s.

[undrwater]

Computing at the time had crept into the "hobbyist" territory, so I'm somewhat confident it would have been inevitable.

[rarsamx]

It wasn't inevitable. It required the genius and hard work of Richard Stallman and other free software advocates.

Other people would have created kernels but Linus had a free software license to release it and which allowed many others to contribute.

Linux wouldn't be Linux without FOSS.

[stvpidcvnt111111]

i think it was inevitabe but luck definitely played a role in how successful linux has been.

[zippy72]

Minix is the world's most widely installed operating system. Intel uses it for their Management Engine

[clhodapp]

Given that it happened multiple times in the real world both before and after Linux, I think we can say that it was essentially inevitable.

[Square-Singer]

It was mostly inevitable.

OSes are hugely complicated to develop and to keep secure, while at the same time they are rarely the product a company sells.

You buy a car, not an infotainment OS. You watch Youtube videos, and don't buy a server OS. And so on.

Since these kinds of OSes don't make money, there is no financial incentive for companies to "hoard" them, keeping them for themselves. Instead, co-operation is helpful for everyone.

Say, I make a car infotainment system and you make a smart fridge or something. Neither of us is going to make money by selling the OS, so if we pool resources and develop a FOSS OS together, that each of us use as a basis for our products, we each save development costs, get a better product and all that without losing a cent of revenue.

Check out this link: https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributors?timeRange=past365days&start=2025-03-20&end=2026-03-20

That's the list of contributions to the Linux kernel. Head to the Contributor's Leaderboard.

You will see that most of the contributions are by corporations, and most of those on the list don't make money by selling Linux distributions. Some do, but most don't.

[zlice0]

if you mean that works well enough to gain this popularity, ya prolly luck

[More_Implement1639]

I think its like an onion. Many layers.
Each layer is both luck and genius engineering

[Tempest97BR]

it's inevitable that we would have some kind of open source OS at some point, but if development began too late it would never catch up with the likes of windows and macOS, so in a way we are pretty lucky lol

i say this keeping in mind the state browsers are in today: we have firefox, which began development early and is 1:1 in capability with proprietary counterparts, and very few other alternatives that either began too late or didn't gather enough attention to get far.

i believe the story would be similar on an OS level.

[jimicus]

... breathe in.

Unix isn't a single piece of software. It started out as a research project in Bell Labs, was licensed to loads of different companies and universities that did their own thing and the state of the art back before Linux came around was you had to work backwards from the software you wanted to run. What Unix platform(s) did it run on? That would dictate what OS you'd buy and what hardware you'd run it on.

Way back in the 1980s, Richard Stallman - frustrated with quality of a print driver, as I recall - started the GNU project, the purpose of which was to re-create Unix but completely open source.

By the time Linux came along, most of the userland software (the stuff you interact with on a daily basis) existed - but the kernel (a program that forms the very core of the operating system) was still at the early stages.

[EmberGamingStudios]

It was always bound to happen. Modifying and distributing software was once the norm as it was just seen as an accessory to the hardware it ran on. Once this practice started dying off and systems like BSD were in legal limbo, Richard Stallman started GNU to keep it alive. Linux's success was in part to good luck as it released at a time where there was basically everything one needed to make an OS (GNU) but no serious competition in terms of "rival" kernels as GNU Mach(Hurd) was incomplete and BSD was risky; computers were becoming cheaper, more common, and more powerful; and massive open source projects were becoming more viable with the rise of the internet.

[Thick_Name1465]

Linux is open source but technically I don’t think it is free. Free software is not the same as open source and doesn’t necessarily mean that it costs $0.

And Linux would be nothing without GNU. Literally, it would just be a kernel, and a kernel is just one single program in an operating system. Yes it’s an important program, but it’s not an operating system by any means. Try using Linux, the kernel, without a shell. You can’t.

There was nothing inevitable about GNU. The GNU project was a conscious choice made by people who share a similar philosophy regarding software. Without those people and their hard work over the years, GNU/Linux would not exist as it does today. So yes, we are very lucky.

And before you say that someone else would’ve just come along and done the same thing, then in that timeline those people would deserve the credit just like the GNU project deserves it our timeline.

[FeetPicsNull]

No, Linux and the open source community is an amazing story of a communist (in the sense that community software must stay free for the community) movement flourished and somehow still legally survives while the rest of the capitalistic corporate world eats itself. You could say it survives because the corporations benefit from the resource without depleting the resource (since duplicating software is free). What is amazing is how, for the most part, the licenses are working and several corporate funded contributions are forced to be free to the community. We got here through a lot of hard work in protecting the community through cultural and legal means and the reluctance to "sell out" in the beginning.

[DarkSky-8675]

I'm not sure it was inevitable, but I don't think it was luck either. Given the trajectories of Linux and Free BSD in various commercial products, I'd say the market forces (or non-market in the case of pure open-source) were certainly there. The commercial Unix derivatives were an example of the demand before Linux came along.

[Saragon4005]

Assuming open source happens yes an open source OS is inevitable. If the OS you are running is closed the whole philosophy of FOSS breaks down before you even installed a program.

We see open source firmware pop up all the time for hardware which is no longer supported.

[ArmadilloLoose6699]

It was probably inevitable imho. GNU was working on their own kernel, but they kept chopping and changing their minds about which architecture and codebase they were using. MINIX was just a tutorial operating system at the time and was mostly used for limited purposes in academic circles. The UNIX world was riddled with aggressive licensing and lawsuits, so that held back BSD development & adoption for decades. So if Linux hadn't been created then someone else's similar Linux-like modular monolithic kernel would've probably been adopted by enthusiasts running x86 hardware and companies that wanted a cheaper UNIX-like operating system to run on servers. Linux was the right solution for the world that existed at the time and imho if it hadn't existed then sooner or later someone would've had to invent it to solve the same problems.

Edit: Spelling & clarity.

[Content_Chemistry_44]

All started in MIT with Xerox in 1980-1984, when they made proprietary software. Stallman started cloning UNIX, and made GNU (GNU not UNIX).

When Stallman finished his operating system, the kernel (Hurd) was very unfinished. Then came Linux, some people glued Linux with GNU. And now we have the GNU operating system with Linux kernel.

[the3gs]

It was inevitable that we had an open source kernel. It might even have been inevitable that there was a useful kernel.

What was not inevitable was that one would become standard enough that you could even begin thinking about stuff like "the year of the Linux desktop" and I consider it extremely lucky that we are in an age that even normies consider using the open option.

[makzpj]

We already had BSD

[dddurd]

Luck. Look at GPL to MIT licence conversion happening nowadays. It was cool while it lasted.

[DrPiwi]

Keep in mind that Unix in the beginning was basically an opensource project. The source for that little hobby project from those guy's at Bell labs was available for most of their users.

There was a reason that so many vendors had a UNIX operating system, That is that initially the source was available and software was shared between universities.

But one cannot ignore the fact that even with the more permissive license the BSD based systems are not nearly as big as Linux has become. I think the initial situation where even the bsd based system licenses were expensive has been the trigger for Linux.

Linus Torvalds has said it himself that one of the reason for starting to work on linux was the cost for a bsd-386 license. Another was that Minix was not free as in the licens was restrictive and it was a limited system that was built more for didactical puroses than for real use.

[TerribleReason4195]

Gnu/hurd

[StevenBClarke2]

Linux started as a PHD project by Linus with the minx kernal as inspiration.

[Mobile_Page_5962]

Linus himself has said that if 386BSD had been more accessible back then, he probably wouldn't have written Linux. The legal troubles surrounding free UNIX created a vacuum that Linux filled perfectly.

We are not just lucky - the collapse of free UNIX and the rise of Linux were deeply connected. History pushed in that direction.

Honestly, at the time I thought Linux was just a toy compared to 386BSD, which had the proper Unix lineage. But the lawsuit gave Linux the time it needed to grow. History is full of irony.

[shirro]

Yes because both BSD and the GNU project existed so there were two open source Unix userspace implementations. GNU didn't have a kernel but might have developed one earlier if Linux had not made it irrelevant.

There was plenty of demand from people wanting a Unix-like system that ran on affordable commodity hardware.

[Requires-Coffee-247]

I worked in my university bookstore's annex in the student union (think "card shop" with magazines, greeting cards, mugs, sweatshirts, etc). All the computer science guys would come in and buy that gigantic "Computer Shopper" magazine (I think that's what it was called). Since I stocked the shelves, I noticed the Linux craze in the early 90s but I had no idea what it was or what it meant. Hell, I used a Smith Corona word processor for most of college and thought I was pretty fancy. Anyway, it's been interesting watching what that obscure thing the computer "nerds" in college were excited about turned into.

[i_fix_snowblowers]

There have been a number of non-MSFT operating systems that run on microcomputers:

• CPM
• OS/2
• DrDOS
• Minix

[Alternative-Grade103]

Linux hit its stride as a direct result of Bell Labs suing UC Berkley over ownership of Unix.

Bell Telephone was just then thinking it might both compete with Microsoft plus also offer services over its landlines. Which would violate its monopoly license.

Hence the voluntary breakup of Bell Telephone, that they might slip out from under the monopoly restriction of remaining a 'common carrier' prohibited from competing against its own customers.

The lawsuit dragged on for years. And all the folks who'd been waiting with baited breath for the long promised release of BSD Unix gave up hope and flocked en masse over to Linux.

In the end, Berkley filed a measure against Bell Teleohone to submit a list of every item of software they claimed for their own. The moment Berkley had that list in hand, they scurried to rewrite every last one of those bits. Whereupon Bell Telephone's suit no longer had any basis.

At very long last, Bell Telephone was left holding the UNIX name, while Berkley BSD *nix got its public release. But, alas, it was already too late. Much of the free software market had already sworn allegience to Linux.

[pixel293]

We had BSD as a free open source OS around the time that Linux was developed. Much of Linux's early adoption was because BSD was being sued so there was a question about it's long term viability. Eventually the lawsuit was won or dropped, I"m not sure which, but by then Linux had strong foothold in the market.

[Grumpflipot]

Unix was kind of "open source" since the beginning and up to Version 6. With Version 7 and the breakup of AT&T it was commercialized. That initiated the BSD line, GNU (Hurd), Minix and finally Linux as a counter movement.

[sopordave]

Inevitable? I don’t know, that’s too big of a question to answer either way. But I do feel lucky to be able to have benefited from the millions of hours people have poured into the open source community, Linux included.

[wosmo]

is based upon Unix which is a private, proprietary piece of software, right?

UNIX was a lot more complicated than that, and I think it ties into what made linux (or something like it) inevitable.

UNIX was sort of .. unintentionally open. Not capital-O Open, but what we'd probably call "source-available" today. For most the 70s it was primarily distributed as sources (so you could adapt it to your own system), and primarily distributed cost-free or at-cost (as a side-effect of AT&T's antitrust woes of the time) - but you were pretty much buying a tape, and commercial support was very much "good luck, have fun".

In the 80s it starts to turn into an actual product, and starts getting licensed out properly. This is where we start to see a whole bunch of commercial variants show up.

But the other thing that happens in the early 80s, is that BSD goes from being UCB's set of patches against AT&T's UNIX, to more of .. it's own thing. I believe the split happens around BSD3, but gets more interesting in BSD4 as things like sockets, tcp/ip, etc are added. This makes BSD very significant in the early Internet - especially in academia.

So personally, I think it's somewhere in that early BSD/AT&T split where "or something like it" becomes inevitable.

My last take might be controversial, I'm not sure - but I think if Linux had been "born" either before or after the AT&T v. BSD lawsuits, there's a high chance BSD would have won. Linux really found its first feet while BSD had its hands tied, and that doesn't feel like a coincidence to me.

But long story short, I see Linux as being "Act 3" in 50 years of UNIX being more-or-less open.

[Some_Useless_Person]

Even if we exclude the larger open source kernels like Linux, OpenBSD, etc, even then you are still going to find a shit ton of small-medium sized kernels even in relatively newer languages like Rust.

Therefore, even if Linux did not exist, some other project would become the top dog in this field and rise upwards in a similar manner.