If it weren`t for Linux, Unix could be dead already, and Microsoft would have won the operating system wars. So said Jon "Maddog" Hall, executive director of Linux International, in his keynote address at the first Linux Africa conference, which kicked off at Kyalami today.
"For a few years before Linux arrived, Unix had already started dying," said Hall. "I knew that Unix was going to be dead. The Unix vendors believed that they`d always have Unix on the high-end machines, and NT on the desktop."
It is now economical to run NT clusters for high-end server tasks, he said, which in effect competes head-to-head with Unix systems.
"The economics say that you get to a point where vendors will stop making applications for high-end Unix. Then Linux came along and I saw the one chance that Unix had."
Hall said the excitement that was prevalent among the early Unix community - which was killed off by the proprietary binary nature of commercial Unix vendors - is once again evident among the Linux pundits.
"Unix will die out," believes Hall. "Linux will become the new Unix system. If it wasn`t for Linux today, Unix could already be dead and Microsoft would have won."
Hall noted that Linux will continue to thrive due to its free nature. He derives two meanings from the word "free" when applied to Linux: the term "gratis" to denote the monetary requirements of Linux, and "libre" to describe the freedom the operating system offers. The second connotation - freedom - is what Hall believes will appeal to businesses investigating the possibilities of Linux.
"You have control. You can change it to meet your needs," he said. "How many of you out there have had to change your business to meet your software? This is bad. You should be able to change your software to meet the needs of your business."
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