1993: The Sourceware Operating System Proposal

Back in 1993 Larry McVoy from Sun Microsystems wrote a paper in which he proposed a cooperation between Sun, Novell and other companies to provide a an open source OS that would unifie the Unix market and run DOS and Windows applications. Five years later his visions seem remarkably correct and are still up-to-date.

I read the document and it's definitely worth the effort. Some interesting quotes:

• "There is an alternative, should Sun and Novell be unable to cooperate. That alternative is Linux."
• "We have a chance of beating Microsoft by changing the rules."

RedHat recently rediscovered this paper. So go get the postscript file, take a deep breath and dive into a this remarkable vision from the past.