Revisting Neuromancer After Three Decades

Re:Revisting Neuromancer After Three Decades by pmoriarty on Friday June 22, 2018 @03:28PM (#17376661)

"I find it interesting how frequently "just ok" software is picked up and reaches a critical mass just because it is open. There are many good software projects that won’t grow because of licensing because they are more useful with network effects."

UNIX itself is a great example of this. Look at the graveyard of excellent UNIX flavors that fell by the wayside when free, open Linux came around.

With more open licensing and a different business model, any of them (instead of Linux) might have been the dominant UNIX flavor today.

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Re:Revisting Neuromancer After Three Decades by bitwize on Friday June 22, 2018 @03:49PM (#17376817)

And they would have been a bit player in the OS marketplace compared to Windows NT.

Assuming that in this alternate timeline, the Apple-NeXT merger still happens, the dominant Unix flavor would likely be macOS. As it is, it's still alive and kicking and enjoying a comfortable number two spot (number one if you're talking desktop installs).

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Re:Revisting Neuromancer After Three Decades by pmoriarty on Friday June 22, 2018 @04:03PM (#17376912)

I'm talking about servers, where Linux dominates.

Sun used to dominate there, and they might have continued to do so had they switched to open licensing, made the OS free, and maybe adopted a business model like RedHat's.

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Re:Revisting Neuromancer After Three Decades by bitwize on Friday June 22, 2018 @08:04PM (#17378564)

If it hadn't been for Linux, Windows NT would have dominated the server market too.

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