Linux in a World Where Windows 3.0 Never Happened

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."

Comments

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[X43B]

IBM evil (again) and no Linux? I think you're going to blow a lot of /.'s minds.

Remember Back To The Future 2?

[Xpilot]

Where Old Biff steals the DeLorean and gives the Sports Almanac to young Biff? Then Doc and Marty come back to a hellish timeline where Biff is a billionaire.

I think something like that happened, where old Bill goes back in time and gives young Bill some tips on how to get lucky in the IT world, plus some source code for Windows 3.0. And we're living in the nightmarish timeline that was created.

Only Doc and Marty can save us now. Or Linux. Whichever does it first :)

Re:If Windows had never existed on the home deskto

[datadriven]

Then Linux types would have had to shamelessly rip off the MacOS interface instead of the Windows one.

Maybe they'd call it Gnome, or something like that.

Re:"What if?" can be fun

[elgatozorbas]

What it all these nerds had girlfriends? /. would not have existed!

Re:"What if?" can be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I was about to mod this whole thread "Offtopic," but you managed to draw a connection between Third Reich historical speculation and Linus Torvalds. Sir, I salute you!