--- Charles Jannuzi
<jannuzi at edu00.f-edu.fukui-u.ac.jp
>
> I would have used Linus Torvalds as a
> comparison, but
> Sakamura thought of his Tron project when Torvalds
> was playing with an
> Atari.
Yeah, but Linux is a pretty lousy example as well. It's just a commodotised version of Unix when all's said and done (not even the best open source one). Better comparisons would be the Amiga OS, NeXT, Plan 9, BeOS, Windriver, QNX, Symbian, whatever the AS/400 runs and various academic OSes.
Windows is a pain - but it won because it stressed backwards compatability above all else - which is of course one of the reasons its such a pain. The best OS for most people is the one that runs the application they need.
In all honesty I doubt that the business version of his OS would have succeeded even without (typical US) protectionism. The last 20 years are littered with better products which failed due to poor marketing, bad luck, or just failing to meet a need.
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