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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:2706 comp.os.linux.misc:19701 Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsfeed.ksu.ksu.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!news.sibylline.com!eskimo!fyl From: fyl@eskimo.com (Phil Hughes) Subject: Re: I hope this won't ignite a major flame war, but I've got to know! Message-ID: <Ct7vBu.E4w@eskimo.com> Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Sender: news@eskimo.com (News User Id) Nntp-Posting-Host: eskimo.com Organization: Linux Journal (206) 527-3385 X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] References: <30drlt$7tc@news.u.washington.edu> <Ct5qpn.G6E@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 02:09:29 GMT Lines: 44 Jon Gefaell (jeg7e@Hopper.itc.Virginia.EDU) wrote: : In article <30drlt$7tc@news.u.washington.edu>, : Tim Smith <tzs@u.washington.edu> wrote: : >it seems the Linux is by far the winner in the : >popularity contest. I don't intend this as a flame, just some history and observations. My obvious initial bias is idicated by my job -- I publish Linux Journal. How Linux Journal happened (instead of BSD Journal?) may help. About 15 months ago a group of us were thinking about starting a "free software" magazine. We eventually realized that "free" wasn't the issue for the consumer, that value was. Drawing an arbitrary line between free and not-free didn't necessarily do what was needed. What the world neded was a "Consumer Reports of computing". You just can't always do the best thing for the consumer if you have advertising. And the software industry is so huge that you would need tens of millions of dollars to start such a magazine. As a crazy idea I suggested doing a Linux magazine. Virtually everyone else decided it was a good idea. And here we are. Now, why Linux rather than BSD both? When I was watching development of BSD and Linux (as a nerd -- I ran BSD before Linux) I saw a significant difference is what was happening. Linux development was much more open. People were encouraged to add code because it was popular or good, not because it was BSD. This is not to say that BSD wasn't better (I don't really care) just that the decision to be more open results in support for more code. Since our decision to cover Linux exclusively we have heard from others that most people looking at commercial use of a free Unix-like system select Linux. This includes companies that are porting their commercial software to a free operating system. Linux isn't perfect. But if perfection was a consideration for being popular MS-DOS wouldn't be in the running. If we can avoid the "mine is better" arguments and ship working product we can probably make a significant dent in the multi-user computer arena. And, if we can't, NT will be declared the winner by default. -- Phil Hughes, Publisher, Linux Journal (206) 524-8338 usually phil@fylz.com, sometimes fyl@eskimo.com