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Another example of this is the popularity of Linux (marketing) over OpenBSD (quality).

and what exactly was the marketing trick that allowed Linux to beat OpenBSD, in your opinion?

Linux had a much more friendly and welcoming community attitude. OpenBSD/NetBSD developers had a bit of an anal-retentive BOFH streak to them. Linus used strong language, but he was very easy-going. He invited folks in, and allowed code from immature developers in, so long as the interfaces were right. Turned out that build a much bigger developer community. It also turned out that ability to code today is not indicative of ability to code five years from now; many of the relatively immature folks who contributed to Linux early got really good over time.

Ultimately, the larger developer base allowed Linux quality to beat OpenBSD quality as well.

Good marketing is usually not a trick.

> Linux had a much more friendly and welcoming community attitude. OpenBSD/NetBSD developers had a bit of an anal-retentive BOFH streak to them

That may have played a role in this, but not a major one. What probably contributed most to the success of Linux was the commercial redistribution and accompanying marketing efforts by companies like SuSE (they even sent free CD sets to unimportant Open Source developers, including me) and Red Hat.

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