BSDs 'lost' just because of this phone number 1-800-ITS-UNIX

[vermaden]

ARTICLE: http://rtemsramblings.blogspot.com/2011/11/minix-versus-linux-versus-bsd.html

The reason MINIX 3 didn't dominate the world has to do with one mistake I made about 1992. At that time I thought BSD was going to take over the world. It was a mature and stable system. I didn't see any point in competing with it, so I focused MINIX on education. Four of the BSD guys had just formed a company to sell BSD commercially. They even had a nice phone number: 1-800-ITS-UNIX. That phone number did them and me in. AT&T sued them over the phone number and the lawsuit took 3 years to settle. That was precisely the period Linux was launched and BSD was frozen due to the lawsuit. By the time it was settled, Linux had taken off. My mistake was not to realize the lawsuit would take so long and cripple BSD. If AT&T had not brought suit (or better yet, bought BSDI), Linux would never have become popular at all and BSD would dominate the world.

 

[Terry_Kennedy]

ARTICLE: http://rtemsramblings.blogspot.com/2011/11/minix-versus-linux-versus-bsd.html

It wasn't just the phone number - that was only one part of the lawsuit. For some background, look at this mostly-complete Wikipedia article. Note that the BSDi folks got drawn into the suit for 2 reasons - one, USL felt that BSDi induced Berkeley to release the NET-2 code, and two, BSDi used the ITS-UNIX phone number without holding a Unix trademark license.

If it hadn't been for BSDi and their investors (which included some major companies such as UUnet [refer to the UUnet IPO documents] and TGV [refer to Cisco / TGV acquisition documents]), with deep pockets, there might not be any free BSD derivatives. Certainly none of the free distributions at that time had the money to fight the USL lawsuit, and a loss for one would be a loss for all.

USL also made a tactical blunder by naming the UC Regents both collectively and individually as defendants. That got enough powerful people angry enough that instead of caving in since the CSRG was winding down anyway, they decided to aggressively defend themselves in the lawsuit.

 

[fluca1978]

[OT] what about the linux part?

I quit reading slashdot several years ago, and sometimes come back when pointed to article I think could be interesting. Reading the interview with prof. Tanenbaum and how he spits over Linux make me angry. Doesn't sound he is talking as stated at the end:

I am too modest

I think facts talk much more than theories.