A world without Linux: Where would Apache, Microsoft -- even Apple be today?

Dabbling in alternative history is always a haphazard exercise. The intertwining of myriad factors and actions, mixed together in an infinitely complex historical equation that determines the future, renders any attempt to excise a certain variable essentially impossible. However, it can sometimes be educational and illuminating to try and poke holes in the edges of recent history to see where we might have wound up. Also, it's fun and potentially full of surprises.

Case in point: What would the world be like if Linus Torvalds hadn't uploaded his v0.0.1 Linux kernel to a public directory in 1991? What if the world never knew Linux?

If we take a look back at the computing landscape in 1991, we find it's completely built on large, entrenched companies charging amazing amounts of money for their products. Whether you were running IBM mainframes or AS/400s, SunOS, HP-UX, AIX, or even VMS, you were working with a very expensive operating system on very expensive hardware.

All data was big data, and there wasn't much room for the midrange and low end of server-based computing. You either had a bunch of PCs churning through DOS apps, generally without a network, or you had a monolithic box in the back room that cost a ton. Computing was an ivory tower.

But when Linux appeared, the mindset was changing, especially in the computer science departments of universities and colleges. The academics wanted to be able to work on systems that didn't require tons of money to license. That spurred the development of Minix, an educational OS designed for use in universities, and it initially motivated Torvalds to begin coding the Linux kernel. Remove Torvalds and Linux from this picture, and assuming that all other variables stay the same (which is a big assumption), then Minix continues on as an educational tool and nothing more, and the monolithic gear continues to rule the computing landscape.

But wait. A few short years later, an operating system known as FreeBSD was made available for FTP download. Its popularity grew quickly, as many users familiar with BSD downloaded FreeBSD for themselves and set about improving it. Then followed the landmark lawsuits that led to BSD becoming open source and the BSD license allowing for the free use of the code. FreeBSD was quickly reworked to incorporate the newly freed code, and it became truly free FreeBSD 2.0 in January 1995.

Without Linux in this mix, I think it's safe to say the thousands and thousands of code hackers all over the world would have found FreeBSD, much as they found Linux. The desire and skills were present, and the licensing on FreeBSD made it extremely easy for anyone to jump into the game. Instead of all those collaborations pushing Linux forward, those efforts would've been focused on FreeBSD. This would have resulted in faster development of FreeBSD and could have eventually led to any number of forks finding traction in various industries.

For instance, before Linux came along, BSD systems were all the rage for small ISPs in the early days of the Internet. BSDi was a favorite, tagged as "the Internet super server," and came outfitted with a number of tools specifically focused on ISP functionality. BSD had a long, established history with an essentially unmatched heritage, as well as very attractive licensing. At that point in time, Linux was barely at version 1.1; I think it's clear that had Linux failed to thrive, FreeBSD would fill that vacuum today.

This alternate history so far occurs prior to the release of Windows 95 and Windows NT, watershed moments in computing. Linux didn't have much of an impact on either product or their successors for a few years. When Linux suddenly emerged as a major threat to Windows, that threat was initially ignored by Redmond.

Had FreeBSD soaked up the spotlight -- and the massive amount of volunteer labor that fueled Linux -- it's quite possible that FreeBSD would have risen to interfere with Microsoft's desktop and server operating system, thus sending Redmond down a different path. After all, Linux was "easy" to dismiss as a college project started by a kid a few short years ago, whereas FreeBSD's lineage was extremely well known and trusted.

If FreeBSD had gained as much momentum and adoption as Linux enjoyed in the mid-1990s, we may have seen major strategic changes from Microsoft much earlier than we did. Who's to say where that might have led? However, I'm fairly certain FreeBSD would have been far and away the most advanced operating system of the day, if Linux had not been eating such a large portion of its cake.

What happens after that might have followed the same basic track. Instead of Apache running all those websites on all those Linux boxes, it would be running on FreeBSD. The tech boom and bust would have happened in much the same way, and highly computerized consumer devices would be littering our lives as they do now. After all, Mac OS X is derived from BSD, as is iOS. It's just as easy to squeeze FreeBSD into a set-top box as it is Linux.

If the world hadn't contributed to building Linux from scratch in the 1990s, FreeBSD might be more advanced than any other OS is today. Plenty of wheels were reinvented during Linux's formative years, and perhaps without the need to take those steps back, FreeBSD may have taken faster steps forward.

But as I said, dabbling in alternative history is always a crapshoot, and a world without Linux could be much the same. All things considered, I expect it's best that it turned out as it has. More choice is generally good, and it's evident that Linux and FreeBSD have taken significantly divergent paths to achieve the same goals. I'll gladly use them both.