NeXT could have ended in the perfect Linux distro, open sourced, leading the Linux kernel development, making the distros environment even richer (Mac Linux for mac users, Ubuntu-Debian & similars for those who don't buy Apple hardware, Chrome OS for netbookers; and minoritary distros for the ones who tweak their own flavor.)
The world would be a better place.
The hardware? Some has been good. Some really advanced to their time. Some G4Cube-ish.
NeXTSTEP wasn't based off the Linux kernel, and I think even if it had been GPL'd, it probably wouldn't have ended up that the Linux port was the preferred way to run it. Consider that OPENSTEP/Mach was contemporaneous with Red Hat Linux 4 and kernel 2.0. Everybody in the market for a desktop Linux distribution at the time would have jumped ship. If anything, the Mach 2.5 microkernel would have been stripped out in favor of a pure FreeBSD system, which would probably have resulted in Linux having the same also-ran status that the BSDs have now.
One of the biggest problems with NEXTSTEP that was addressed in the transition to OS X was the replacement of Display Postscript. The license and practice around that was horrible. I don't think the money was there to do that work without going to Apple.
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NeXT could have ended in the perfect Linux distro, open sourced, leading the Linux kernel development, making the distros environment even richer (Mac Linux for mac users, Ubuntu-Debian & similars for those who don't buy Apple hardware, Chrome OS for netbookers; and minoritary distros for the ones who tweak their own flavor.)
The world would be a better place.
The hardware? Some has been good. Some really advanced to their time. Some G4Cube-ish.
I have to admit the guy is brilliant.
NeXTSTEP wasn't based off the Linux kernel, and I think even if it had been GPL'd, it probably wouldn't have ended up that the Linux port was the preferred way to run it. Consider that OPENSTEP/Mach was contemporaneous with Red Hat Linux 4 and kernel 2.0. Everybody in the market for a desktop Linux distribution at the time would have jumped ship. If anything, the Mach 2.5 microkernel would have been stripped out in favor of a pure FreeBSD system, which would probably have resulted in Linux having the same also-ran status that the BSDs have now.
One of the biggest problems with NEXTSTEP that was addressed in the transition to OS X was the replacement of Display Postscript. The license and practice around that was horrible. I don't think the money was there to do that work without going to Apple.