Linux in a World Where Windows 3.0 Never Happened

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Friday February 4, 2005 @03:36AM from the drink-the-magic-time-drink dept.

covertbadger writes "Larry Osterman said farewell yesterday to David Weise, the developer he credits with getting applications to run in protected mode on Windows 3.0, which led directly to Microsoft choosing to push Windows instead of OS/2. Today he speculates on what the IT world would be like if Weise had never completed this work. Windows 95 would never have existed, OS/2 would be the de facto standard, and IBM would never have put weight behind Linux because it had its own operating system to push."

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Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have by Leo+McGarry · 2005-02-04 07:04 · Score: 1, Flamebait

There are even bits of Linux code here and there in Darwin.

No, there aren't, for licensing reasons. Linux is encumbered by the proprietary Gnu license, which Apple has rejected out of hand. There is no Gnu-licensed code in Darwin.

If Linux were available under an open license, maybe Apple might have been able to benefit from some pieces of it. But as of right now, it's impossible.