I think you've covered most of the points -particularly the lawsuits and the development model (why code where you're not wanted when Linux is just right there ?).
I suspect that BSD may have been a bit more flakey than Linux as well. I've never tried it on bare metal so I may be wrong; but in emulation 386BSD seems very difficult to get working properly.
I wasn't there, but based on that experience I'm guessing that Linux got to a more usable point first?
Another point is that Linux simply ran on a wider variety of commodity hardware earlier than BSD did.
I suspect that BSD may have been a bit more flakey than Linux as well. I've never tried it on bare metal so I may be wrong; but in emulation 386BSD seems very difficult to get working properly.
I wasn't there, but based on that experience I'm guessing that Linux got to a more usable point first?
Another point is that Linux simply ran on a wider variety of commodity hardware earlier than BSD did.