Linux and growth of Internet

[Gavin Thomas Nicol]

On Jan 13, 2005, at 4:50 PM, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> But my original assertion was that the rapid rise, development and
> adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by 
> Linux.
> And while you had "e-mail", unless we're talking about Internet e-mail
> (and notwithstanding Fidonet), it was based in closed, proprietary 
> systems
> that were not interconnected.  The introduction to the Internet was an
> afterthought, only when it proved itself to be indispensable to their
> viability as a business.

It's all network effects... open standards typically win in the long 
run because of network effects. The closed systems ended up needing to 
communicate, so they ended up using the Internet. Then people were 
stuck maintaining 2 systems... and everyone knows that doesn't last for 
long.

> Another thing is that we've had the internet since the 1960s.  Many 
> people
> tried to bring predecessors of the Web (e.g. Videotex) systems to the 
> US
> in the 1980s and failed.

Network effects again. Why do you think Europe, Japan etc. lead the US 
vis-a-vis cell phone usage?