Re. [Oberon] PC Makers Hit Speed Bumps - Oberon opportunity

Frank Copeland fjc at wossname.apana.org.au
Fri Oct 4 12:18:05 CEST 2002


On Thu, Oct 03, 2002 at 07:02:57PM +0200, eas-lab at absamail.co.za wrote:

> For us, linux is important:
> *  to see how dispersed collaboration can/can't work,
> * possibly copy some of it's openly available algorithms/ideas,
> * coming later has the advantage: we can also learn what NOT to do.

I think you will find that your idea of who came later is mistaken. The
Oberon project dates from the 1980s; "Project Oberon" places it in the
years 1986-1989. "Project Oberon" itself was published in 1992. The
Oberon-2 language report is dated 1993.

The initial public release of the linux kernel was in late 1991.
According to
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/debian/chapter/ch01_02.html> the first
really usable linux OS dates from 1992, a good 3-5 years after the
Oberon System became a practical OS. However, if you count the
publication of "Project Oberon" as the public release of Oberon, then
they are pretty much contemporaries.

Oberon started as an academic research project and after 15 years
that's pretty much what it still is. Linux started off as a student's
hobby project and after 10 years it is now a serious competitor to
every other major OS.

So who do you think has worked out what NOT to do?

Frank
-- 
Home Page: <URL:http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fjc/> 
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