Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 10th Aug 2007 21:01 UTC, submitted by irbis
"Linus Torvalds was only 22 when he decided in 1991 to share with friends and colleagues the code of Linux, the new OS he had created. The computer science student at the University of Helsinki could not imagine the revolution his decision would cause through the IT industry in the years to come. In this interview, he talks about why he released the code, offers his views on Microsoft and says the future belongs to open source."
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Member since:
2007-08-03
'1. There were other UNIX-like system around, and some were better and more complete than Linux. If Linux wasn't free, customers would not pay attention. If it was very low priced, but proprietary, well, that might have worked, maybe. The price could have gradually increased, as the system grew more attractive.'
Actually I do think that this is as far besides the point as you can get:
Version 0.01 sure as hell didn't have any customers no matter how much it costs because it was hardly useable.
The difference that open source made was that developers got interested and worked with it.
If it would have been closed source it would have never went anywhere since - as was correctly pointed out - even the messiah of Linux (not open source - that would be RMS) couldn't write a kernel like they have today by himself.
That the nixes got killed by it is more like a testemony to the incapability to the involved companies and has nothing to do with money.
After all it seems Apple is wildly profitable.