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Linus Torvalds is Turning 30, Kudos Are Rolling In
Roberth Edberg writes "The Swedish birthday congratulationlist for Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) is increasing every minute. Will he have an world record in individual birthday congratulations? Even the Swedish Linux World site, made news about it. Why not follow the example and make lists for your own country?" Linus Torvalds is turning 30 on 28 December 1999, so start sending those greetings! Update by RM: I can be an idiot sometimes! I originally thought Linus's b-day was 10/28 & wished a "belated" congrats. 28 Oct. is um, *Bill Gates's* b-day. Thanks to all who spotted the error.
So did the IBM PC. The schematics and the source code (in Assembly language) for the BIOS is provided in the Technical Reference Manual, which anybody could purchase.
I did say "as open if not more". The difference is those things were included with the Apple II, and extra cost on the IBM PC. The other difference is that Apple did all of this 4 or 5 years before IBM did. Of course by the mid 80's neither company was offering such things, first not for free, later not at all.
So, where's the source code listing for the Macintosh ROMs?
Where was the source code listing for the PS/2 ROMs or the schematics for the MCA bus?
I'm not saying Apple was right either, but you can't blame Apple solely as the only company that tried to close things down around that time.
I think its also worth noting that in many ways, Apple's reluctance to open up the Mac has ensured that it will never be more than a niche player in the market, and IBM's attempt to close the PC architecture with the PS/2 resulted in them losing their mantle of leadership in the PC hardware market.
Closed hardware will do itself in with or without Bill Gates. There is no real evidence that he is really a big supporter of open hardware. Microsoft has always been one of the leading software suppliers for the closed Mac platforms, and Microsoft never developed products for some systems that are were probably more open than the Mac at the time (like the Atari ST or Amiga, for example).
Frankly, I believe that the primary reason that Gates suggested that IBM build a hardware architecture as open as the IBM PC was because he was copying the sucessful formula of the Apple II and S-100 based CP/M machines, not because he was ideologically in favor of open systems.
My whole point is that the poster who suggested we should thank Bill Gates for saving us from Apple was way off track. Not only did we not need saving because I believe that closed systems will do themselves in eventually, but then Microsoft helped keep the Mac around by developing software for it.