Open Source History: Why Did Linux Succeed?

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Why did Linux, the Unix-like operating system kernel started by Linus Torvalds in 1991 that became central to the open source world, succeed where so many similar projects, including GNU HURD and the BSDs, fail?

 

One of the most puzzling questions about the history of free and open source is this: Why did Linux succeed so spectacularly, whereas similar attempts to build a free or open source, Unix-like operating system kernel met with considerably less success? I don't know the answer to that question. But I have rounded up some theories, which I'd like to lay out here.

 

First, though, let me make clear what I mean when I write that Linux was a great success. I am defining it in opposition primarily to the variety of other Unix-like operating system kernels, some of them open and some not, that proliferated around the time Linux was born. GNU HURD, the free-as-in-freedom kernel whose development began in May 1991, is one of them. Others include Unices that most people today have never heard of, such as various derivatives of the Unix variant developed at the University of California at Berkeley, BSD; Xenix, Microsoft's take on Unix; academic Unix clones including Minix; and the original Unix developed under the auspices of AT&T, which was vitally important in academic and commercial computing circles during earlier decades, but virtually disappeared from the scene by the 1990s.

 

I'd also like to make clear that I'm writing here about kernels, not complete operating systems. To a great extent, the Linux kernel owes its success to the GNU project as a whole, which produced the crucial tools, including compilers, a debugger and a BASH shell implementation, that are necessary to build a Unix-like operating system. But GNU developers never created a viable version of the the HURD kernel (although they are still trying). Instead, Linux ended up as the kernel that glued the rest of the GNU pieces together, even though that had never been in the GNU plans.

 

So it's worth asking why Linux, a kernel launched by Linus Torvalds, an obscure programmer in Finland, in 1991—the same year as HURD—endured and thrived within a niche where so many other Unix-like kernels, many of which enjoyed strong commercial backing and association with the leading Unix hackers of the day, failed to take off. To that end, here are a few theories pertaining to that question that I've come across as I've researched the history of the free and open source software worlds, along with the respective strengths and weaknesses of these various explanations.

 

Linux Adopted a Decentralized Development Approach

 

This is the argument that comes out of Eric S. Raymond's essay, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," and related works, which make the case that software develops best when a large number of contributors collaborate continuously within a relatively decentralized organizational structure. That was generally true of Linux, in contrast to, for instance, GNU HURD, which took a more centrally directed approach to code development—and, as a result, "had been evidently failing" to build a complete operating system for a decade, in Raymond's view.

 

To an extent, this explanation makes sense, but it has some significant flaws. For one, Torvalds arguably assumed a more authoritative role in directing Linux code development—deciding which contributions to include and reject—than Raymond and others have wanted to recognize. For another, this reasoning does not explain why GNU succeeded in producing so much software besides a working kernel. If only decentralized development works well in the free/open source software world, then all of GNU's programming efforts should have been a bust—which they most certainly were not...........

 

http://thevarguy.com...d-linux-succeed