First open source OS

[rlk at alum.mit.edu (Robert L Krawitz)]

   From: richb at pioneer.ci.net
   Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 12:15:39 -0500 (EST)

   GAF wrote:
   > They state thet Linux is the first completely open source
   > operating system.  I think they are wrong on a couple of
   > counts. FreeBSD predates Linux, but was kind of overshadowed by
   > the AT&T lawsuit.

   I'm not too sure about that.  I brought up Linux in December 1992
   and I don't recall FreeBSD being completely open at that point--you
   still had to use some AT&T proprietary code to get it up and
   running.  I chose Linux over FreeBSD at the time because of that,
   and because of the active newsgroups which seemed to have more
   momentum at the time.  FreeBSD's popularity surged in 1994 or
   thereabouts.

The original MIT Lisp Machine (CADR) was completely free software,
right down to the microcode.  One of the things that particularly
upset RMS was when Symbolics took some of the source proprietary.
This was circa late 1970's, early 1980's.

-- 
Robert Krawitz <rlk at alum.mit.edu>      http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/

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"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
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