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Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

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Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#101

Post by emmelaich »

bluedino wrote: post #89
gjmacd wrote: post #40

people give Jobs and Gates a lot of credit because they focused on commercial products that were marketed to the public -- Linus, for me, is probably the single most important person to technology (software) in the last 35 years. With Linux and Git alone, it as impactful and game changing in this industry that I can think of. I cannot think of any person that's been this important to my career and my income.

I’m not detracting from Linus at all but it’s just a kernel - I think one of the BSD’s would have filled the void

Hmm, one of BSDs.

In 1991 there were already five or so. Plus other 'cheap' Unixes like Xenix and the usual big names.

If Linux didn't happen we'd have a few thousand BSD variants by now.

The great thing about Linus was the combination of technical brilliance and his forceful personality.

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#102

Post by bluedino »

emmelaich wrote: post #101
bluedino wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not detracting from Linus at all but it’s just a kernel - I think one of the BSD’s would have filled the void

Hmm, one of BSDs. In 1991 there were already five or so. Plus other 'cheap' Unixes like Xenix and the usual big names. If Linux didn't happen we'd have a few thousand BSD variants by now. The great thing about Linus was the combination of technical brilliance and his forceful personality.

They were still in copyright battle with AT&T until 1994 and by that time it was too late, Linux was on its way.

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#103

Post by mixmastamyk »

codeulike wrote: post #94
mixmastamyk wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that linux runs on almost anything would probably have helped it in a heterogeneous environment.

But is 'linux runs on anything' something that happened after it had achieved critical mass?

See sibling comment.

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#104

Post by dharma1 »

Just yesterday I was watching his interview from a couple of years ago (in Finnish, sadly he doesn't do many of those any more).

He credited having a fair amount of free time during his 8 years of studying at University of Helsinki being a fairly big enabler of how Linux happened (or how he had time to work on it). I found that interesting

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#105

Post by chiefalchemist »

tytso wrote: post #16
chiefalchemist wrote: post #8

I just finished reading the book "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky (circa 2008). In the book he mentions this very "announcement." What's fascinating, per the book, is Linux was one of the first significant byproducts (if you will) of (internet) connectivity and how that enabled easy group / team formation. In the case of Linux, its growth helped to further connectivity, etc. That is, in creating Linux, it helped…

I don't know that I would call Linux "one of the first". Usenet had been around for a long time, and there were plenty of projects that were enabled via Usenet and mailing lists. For example, perl predates Linux by four years.

Pardon me for mis-paraphrasing a 300 page book. The key I left out was that Linux went on to compete with the likes of Microsoft, and is used on a significant number of internet servers.

I'm pretty sure it was one of the first to start so small and acheive so much.

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#106

Post by znaji »

bluedino wrote: post #89
gjmacd wrote: post #40

people give Jobs and Gates a lot of credit because they focused on commercial products that were marketed to the public -- Linus, for me, is probably the single most important person to technology (software) in the last 35 years. With Linux and Git alone, it as impactful and game changing in this industry that I can think of. I cannot think of any person that's been this important to my career and my income.

I’m not detracting from Linus at all but it’s just a kernel - I think one of the BSD’s would have filled the void

I agree with this. It is likely that something else would've filled the void. Maybe something much better. Maybe we're missing on a lot because Linux popped up :)

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#107

Post by znaji »

tyingq wrote: post #69

"PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code" That's kind of interesting now. Most Linux installations today coexist with a management processor running Minix. So what was a sort of mild rivalry is now a détente.

I'd say most Linux installations today are Android mobiles. Do those have Minix too?

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#108

Post by znaji »

tyingq wrote: post #11
empath75 wrote: post #4

I can only imagine the first comment was someone telling him it would never work.

Nope: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNt... Though Usenet could get toxic at times.

Saying something is unfeasible or hard to do doesn't make your comment toxic.

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#109

Post by nineteen999 »

PopsiclePete wrote: post #93

Curious - what about Linux in particular made people interested in it so much as opposed to contributing to some *BSD, or Hurd? Strictly the license?

In 1991, the BSD's as we know them today didn't exist.

  386BSD - 1992
  FreeBSD - 1993
  NetBSD - 1993
  OpenBSD - 1996
There were also ongoing lawsuits concerning AT&T code:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386BSD#History
I'm not 100% sure but from memory I don't believe the HURD (Mach-based) kernel was even bootable in 1991. I didn't see bootable HURD releases till much later in the 1990's and they were notoriously unstable.

Re: Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

#110

Post by zelon88 »

bluedino wrote: post #102
emmelaich wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, one of BSDs. In 1991 there were already five or so. Plus other 'cheap' Unixes like Xenix and the usual big names. If Linux didn't happen we'd have a few thousand BSD variants by now. The great thing about Linus was the combination of technical brilliance and his forceful personality.

They were still in copyright battle with AT&T until 1994 and by that time it was too late, Linux was on its way.

This. Linux wasn't based on proprietary code, and wasn't saddled by any sort of license.

The original BSD that Bell Labs gave to Berkeley in 1974 was anything but open source. It was an operating system that Bell had provided to the university with source code available for modification and redistribution ONLY to other universities WHO ALSO HELD research licenses from Bell Labs.

And it still wasn't open-source in the early 90's when Berkeley scrubbed all the proprietary bits out of it and tried to sell it for profit. That's when AT&T sued them.

So even if you HAD a copy of the BSD source code pre-1994 it wouldn't have been the same as someone handing you code and asking for your advice on it. You would have certainly found yourself in court if you modified early BSD for redistribution.

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