“I come not to bury Unix, but to praise it. Without Unix, there
would be no Linux — so indulge me if I’m not as quick as others to
pronounce Unix dead. If anything, the recent purchase by Linux
distributor Caldera of SCO’s Unix assets signifies, at the very
least, a rebirth of Unix rather than a death.”
“Unix helped change the way the world computed. Even MS-DOS,
which introduced Unix-style pipes and sub-directories in its second
release, was affected. Unix gave Richard Stallman a stable and
useful target when he formed his free OS project project — and not
only because “GNV” (GNV is not VMS) didn’t sound as cool as “GNU.”
Unix thus provided the frame of reference used by a certain Finnish
computer student almost a decade ago….”
“Linux has rekindled the early enthusiasm of Unix because it
redefines openness beyond anything a Unix vendor could dream of.
The same energy I saw in early Unix user groups (I was a director
of Uniforum Canada for some years) I see multiplied tenfold in the
Linux world. Sure, commercial vendors have become involved in
Linux — when was the last time IBM puffed about its Unix
involvement as much as it now does for Linux on the web and even on
TV — but they’re doing so on the terms of the Linux community. The
distinction between innovation and gratuitous forking is minimized,
and even the most proprietary of companies are contributing back
free software.”