As one of the creators of Berkeley Unix, Bill Joy knows a thing or two about developing and marketing a free operating system. Sun Microsystems’ chief scientist has survived the Unix wars and has watched both his company and its chief competitor, Microsoft, grow from tiny start-ups to industry giants. Though he has had a major hand in the development of such important Unix technologies as NFS (Sun’s Network File System), the Berkeley Unix TCP/IP stack, and the vi text editor, Joy’s current obsession is trying to build a thriving development community around Sun’s Jini distributed computing technology and its not-quite-Open Source software licensing model. Joy recently accepted Linux Magazine’s invitation to dinner, where he gave Publisher Adam Goodman, Executive Editor Robert McMillan, and Associate Editor Eugene Kim the lowdown on what Sun thinks of Linux and Open Source.
Linux Magazine: One of the reasons we wanted to talk to you was that you have a long history with and a broad perspective on Unix and free software. What do you think of Linux? A lot of people talk about it as more than just an operating system.
Bill Joy: It’s actually less. It’s just a kernel if you want to be technical about it. It’s…
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