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Linux Software

Linux Timeline By LWN and LJ 162

Posted by Hemos from the looking-at-my-navel dept.
A reader wrote to us with the link that Linux Journal has put together a Linux Timeline. Kinda nice to walk down memory lane - and think about what was on peoples' mind at each major point. Of course, if I see the original letter Linus wrote at the beginning one more time...*grin*
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Linux Timeline By LWN and LJ More

Linux Timeline By LWN and LJ

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  • Along with the Google Usenet timeline, this is a good way to keep the history of computing, where normally there is no records.

  • Timeline! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:00PM (#3931684)
    2005 : Open Source programmers get laid.
    2006 : All Open Source development halts.

  • Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)

    by alexmogil ( 442209 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:01PM (#3931686) Homepage Journal
    Is there a point on the timeline that shows the first:

    Stephen King is dead post

    goatse.cx post

    'Windows Apologist' post

    'Who cares about anime?' post

    And, more importantly, 'Man, Slashdot just ruined the Lone Rangers season finale!' day.

    • What about The Glorious MEEPT? Mae Ling Mak, naked and petrified? Hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants? Penis birds?

      Goatse.cx is about the only thing from those days to have survived...

      [Nostalgic about old Slashdot trolls? I'm beginning to worry about myself. Feel free to mod me down for this. :)]

  • Wars (Score:1, Troll)

    by papasui ( 567265 )
    It's kinda funny that it started out Linux as an alternative to Windows and what it has become is xxx Linux as an alternative to xyz linux. Distos competing against each other, instead of ultimately working together to continue to improve it. There needs to be some sort of linux management system to get things under control.
    • Linux started out as a home version of Sun OS on a 386(486). Linus sees a SparcStation at school, wishes for one on ordinary common PC's, makes kernel, adds gnu tools, Internet developer community, viola.

    • Re:Wars (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:19PM (#3931820) Homepage Journal
      Linux didn't start out as an alternative to Windows. It started out as an alternative to Minix and proprietary unices. Linus wanted a unix on his computer. GNU was grossly incomplete. BSD was being mugged by AT&T. Everything else was proprietary. So he started his own.

      It wasn't until the age of Slashdot when a significant minority of Linux users (not coders) decided that Linux had to be an alternative or replacement for Windows.

      • Re:Wars (Score:3, Insightful)

        by El_Smack ( 267329 )

        I would argue that Linux became mature enough to inspire a vision of replacing Windows and THAT spawned Slashdot. Had Linux never reached that point, Slashdot and the whole "Linux Community" would not exist.
        That said, I still don't think Linux is a "Desktop for the Masses", but it will get there. RedHat and Mandrake are making great headway in those areas.

        • There's that old saying that Linux is for people that hate Windows and BSD is for people that love Unix. I see a lot of truth in that statement.
      • Actually, in the beginnings of Slashdot, the most prominent posters were coders. I remember Alan Cox, Bruce Perens, Rasterman, and plenty of other not-so-rememberable names posted here.

        I don't think Linus ever posted here. Nor has RMS (even though he has had stories submitted).


      • You sez:

        "Linux didn't start out as an alternative to Windows.
        It started out as an alternative to Minix and proprietary unices."

        As far as the history goes, the reason for Linus to release "Linux" (at that time, it wasn't even known as "linux") was that it was an experiment.

        Linux was NOT meant to be an alternative to anything. It's just an experiment that caught the fancy of many, who in turn, contributed suggestions, codes, fixes, extensions, et cetera and (almost) 11 years later we have Linux as we know it.

        I hope that next time people says Linux, they take Linux as the original thing, rather than an "alternative" to XXX or YYY.

        Thank you !

    • Re:Wars (Score:1, Insightful)

      by jedie ( 546466 )
      That's not entirely true imo:
      1. linux is not an alternative for windows, it's just an OS for computer enthusiasts.. the "Linux vs Windows" thing is just a by-product and is only kept alive by people who suffer from the "Stallman Syndrome"
      2. There is no "distro war". There is however a distro-user war. (i.e. DistX users and DistY users flaming till the wee hours of morning.)
      3. "a Linux Management System" wouldn't be a good idea. The cool thing about linux distros is that they are versatile and modular, tailored to ones needs. You can always pick a distro that meets your requirements just because of this diversity in distros.

      ofcourse, this is just my EUR .02

  • Most Recent Entry... (Score:4, Funny)

    by TibbonZero ( 571809 ) <Tibbon@@@gmail...com> on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:06PM (#3931734) Homepage Journal
    7.22.2002- The Linux Timeline gets ./ed, showing that even though Linux can hold up, even the best internet connections can't.

  • unix timeline (Score:5, Informative)

    by dizco ( 20340 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:06PM (#3931737)
    This has been posted before, but here's a nifty history-of-unix timeline [wanadoo.fr]

    Also the book 'a quarter century of unix' is a great read, if a bit dated.

    --sean
    • Ok, having clicked on that link...

      What up with all the UNIX guys having beards? Not like little beards either, but big bushy ones...

      • What up with all the UNIX guys having beards? Not like little beards either, but big bushy ones...

        Laziness
      • That's called a Big Ol' Programmer's Beard. You will notice that you will one day have the urge to grow one, and one's salary seems to roughly follow the length and bushiness of the beard. I suggest you try it.

    • Also the book 'a quarter century of unix' is a great read, if a bit dated.

      A bit? I would say it's a gigabyte dated. They don't have a single mention of Linux, if I'm not wrong (I didn't read the whole book).
  • only 9 posts and already ./ed.
    Slashdot.org - The best DoS for *nix servers :-)

    • Re:./ effect (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Sabalon ( 1684 )
      Well, I'm sure half of those 9 posts are "First post" morons, and the other half are people who couldn't bother to read an article and just post based on the synopsis.

      Guess it's /.ed cause some people are actually reading it :)

  • Wishful Thinking (Your wish is not granted) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by djaquay ( 169233 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:09PM (#3931764) Homepage
    ``In fact it's probably easier to write a virus for Linux because it's open source and the code is available. So we will be seeing more Linux viruses as the OS becomes more common and popular.''--Wishful thinking from McAfee

    Yeah, very much wishful thinking. The truth seems to be that the more closed the source is, the more careless the coders get, and the more security holes and virus hooks appear. Sorry, McAfee, Linux geeks aim to make you irrelevant.
    • Nice try, but you forgot about the dozens of security holes in sendmail. (Remember the Morris Worm?)

      And do remember that RedHat is the most insecure OS around in its default install.

      • it is? heh, try installing a default NT4 server with default IIS, put that box on the web and see how many seconds it lasts.......
      • There are no skeletons hidden in the closet.

        While M$ on the other hand...

        "MS Windows -- Clandestine Fun For Years To Come"
      • RedHat is insecure?

        Crap! Who has been making fun of them? I didn't even know a Distro had feelings...

        Oh you ment UNSECURE.

        So you are telling me that if I load RedHat 7.3 and choose a server install with a firewall, it is more prone to attacks than ALL other OSes. Doesn't sound correct to me.

        I can't speak for sendmail, but I doubt it has the problems that Exchange has had.

      • Never said that Linux/Unix progs didn't have security problems. It just seems to me that commercial software has a strong incentive to ship when it's "good enough" rather than when it's right, and having the source means that if I understood security (which I don't) I could verify the code that I'm running, and supply fixes to the community (which does happen, and apparently somewhat frequently from the looks of it).

        And in the commercial world, the 800-lb gorilla just came out and said, "uh, maybe we'd better start paying attention to security after all, huh?" Sounds like a systemic deficiency, to me.

      • It doesn't matter what's the most unsecure OS in its default install. Everybody knows that Linux is NOT a desktop OS, it's an IT Geeks OS. And any IT geek worth his salt knows how to make any given operating system that he's about to install secure. (And if he doesn't he definitely shouldn't be installing it at all. :)

    • Not only wishful thinking, but also uttered by a person who is probably not very tech-savvy. People knowing the technology would either substitute probably with not or just say that ... it is easier ..."

      The truth is that coders never will agree which one is the truth.

      (MacAfee should be happy if there came more viruses for Linux or any platform, it's their living.)
  • Bill Gates wakes at 2:25 in the morning, weeping for no apparent reason.

    Steve Ballmer imitates a monkey and gets big laughs at at a party.

    John Ashcroft gets the shivers, and puts down the Peep-Hole magazine he was reading in sudden unease.

  • Is here [zebs.org.uk] as it looks like its been /. at the moment.

  • Linux timeline (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rupert ( 28001 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:12PM (#3931776) Homepage Journal
    July 2002: Linux Journal still not capable of withstanding a slashdotting.

  • funny things from Linus's first post.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:14PM (#3931783) Homepage Journal
    hmmm. if only Linus knew what was to come when he wrote the following in his first posting to the minix newsgroup:

    It is NOT protable .... probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks
    • hmmm. if only Linus knew what was to come when he wrote the following in his first posting to the minix newsgroup:

      ``Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (it's going to be HUGE, so let's put a stop to this "Linus doesn't scale" crap before it starts! :)''

  • Full Text (Score:4, Informative)

    by TibbonZero ( 571809 ) <Tibbon@@@gmail...com> on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:17PM (#3931808) Homepage Journal
    My first attempt at posting the whole text died... so here we go again

    100 of the most significant events in Linux history.

    As part of our 100th issue celebration, we present 100 of the most significant events in Linux history. As shown in the timeline, the first issue of Linux Journal coincided with the release of Linux 1.0. Ever since, the fortunes of our magazine have followed those of Linux at large.
    It's been a wild eight years, filled with a variety of exciting events. Choosing only 100 was a difficult task, and certainly some readers will be quick to point out events they would have chosen that we did not, but the following manages to maintain the roller-coaster ride that is Linux history.

    We would like to recognize our indebtedness to Rebecca Sobol and Jonathan Corbet at Linux Weekly News, for allowing us to borrow heavily from the timeline featured on their site and for their accurate and gracious historical editing.

    August 1991
    ``Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).
    I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-) Linus (
    PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.''

    September 1991
    Linux version 0.01 is released and put on the Net.

    April 1992
    The first Linux newsgroup, comp.os.linux, is proposed and started by Ari Lemmke.

    October 1992
    Peter MacDonald announces SLS, the first standalone Linux install. At least 10MB of space on disk was recommended.

    June 1993
    Slackware, by Patrick Volkerding, becomes the first commercial standalone distribution and quickly becomes popular within the Linux community.

    August 1993
    Matt Welsh's Linux Installation and Getting Started, version 1 is released. This is the first book on Linux.

    March 1994
    The first issue of Linux Journal is published. This issue featured an interview with Linus Torvalds and articles written by Phil Hughes, Robert ``Bob'' Young, Michael K. Johnson, Arnold Robbins, Matt Welsh, Ian A. Murdock, Frank B. Brokken, K. Kubat, Micahel Kraehe and Bernie Thompson. Advertisers in the premier issue include Algorithms Inc., Amtec Engineering, Basmark, Fintronic (later became VA Research, VA Linux Systems, then...), Infomagic, Prime Time Freeware, Promox, Signum Support, SSC, Trans Ameritech, USENIX, Windsor Tech and Yggdrasil.

    Linux 1.0 is released.

    June 1994
    While at a conference in New Orleans, Jon ``maddog'' Hall persuades Linus to port Linux to DEC's 64-bit Alpha computer processor chip. Less than two weeks later, maddog had also persuaded DEC to fund the project. An Alpha workstation was immediately sent to Linus. ``Digital [DEC] and the Linux community formed the first truly successful venture of suits and Linux geeks working together'', said maddog.

    Linux International, a nonprofit vendor organization, is founded by Jon ``maddog'' Hall. Linux International goes on to become a major contributor to the success of Linux, helping corporations and others work toward the promotion of the Linux operating system.

    August 1994
    Linux trademark dispute: is Linux trademarked? William R. Della Croce, Jr. files for the trademark ``Linux'' on August 15, 1994, and it is registered in September. Della Croce has no known involvement in the Linux community yet sends letters out to prominent Linux companies demanding money for use of the trademark ``Linux''. A lawsuit is filed in 1996 against Della Croce. Plaintiffs in the suit include Linus Torvalds; Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. (publishers of Linux Journal); Yggdrasil Computing, Inc.; Linux International; and WorkGroup Solutions (also known as LinuxMall). The plaintiffs prevail, and in 1997 announce the matter as settled by the assignment of the mark to Linus Torvalds on behalf of all Petitioners and Linux users.

    September 1994
    Linux is first mentioned in the mainstream press. Wired magazine features an article titled ``Kernel Kid'', by Seth Rosenthal. He writes: ``So, is Linus going to become the Bill Gates of Finland? Maybe not. He claims to be 'by no means a good student' and is in no hurry to graduate since 'Linux has taken a lot of time from my studies, and I like the work I have at the University which keeps me alive.'''

    Randolph Bentson reports on the world's first vendor-supported Linux device driver in Linux Journal. Cyclades gave him a multiport serial card in exchange for developing a Linux driver for it.

    December 1994
    A major tradeshow and conference take notice of Linux. Open Systems World features a Linux track, hosted by Linux Journal. Two days of seminars include Eric Youngdale, Donald Becker, Dirk Hohndel, Phil Hughes, Michael K. Johnson and David Wexelblat as speakers.

    April 1995
    Linux Expo, the first Linux-specific tradeshow and conference series, launches, thanks to the folks at North Carolina State University and in particular, Donnie Barnes. Speakers include Marc Ewing, Rik Faith and Michael K. Johnson, among others. Linux Expo snowballs and becomes the most popular and well-attended annual Linux show for the next several years (after three years Red Hat takes over organization and becomes the major sponsor). The price for entry into the exhibit hall and a pass to the conferences? $4.

    January 1997
    First ``Linux virus'' discovered. Called Bliss, it actually works on any UNIX-like OS and offers a helpful--``bliss-uninfect-files-please'' command-line option. Alan Cox points out that Bliss ``does not circumvent the security of the system, it relies on people with privilege to do something dumb'' and reminds users to install digitally signed software from trustworthy sites only and to check signatures before installing.

    ``In fact it's probably easier to write a virus for Linux because it's open source and the code is available. So we will be seeing more Linux viruses as the OS becomes more common and popular.''--Wishful thinking from McAfee

    January 1998
    Linux Weekly News begins publication with Jonathan Corbet and Elizabeth Coolbaugh as founders. The very first issue, dated January 22, was just a tiny hint of what LWN was to become.

    Netscape announces that they will release the source to their browser under a free software license. This almost certainly remains one of the most important events of the year; it opened a lot of eyes to what Linux and free software could provide.

    Red Hat Advanced Development Labs (RHAD) is founded. It has since become one of the higher-profile places where people are paid to develop free software and an important component of the GNOME Project. RHAD is able to attract developers like ``Rasterman'' (although only for a short time) and Federico Mena-Quintero.

    February 1998
    The Cobalt Qube is announced and immediately becomes a favorite in the trade press due to its high performance, low price and cute form factor. Cobalt's Linux engineering is done by none other than David Miller, the source of much that is good in the Linux kernel.

    The Linux user community wins InfoWorld's technical support award; Red Hat 5.0 also won their Operating System award. But it was the tech support award that truly opened some eyes; everybody had been saying that Linux had no support. This was the beginning of the end of the ``no support'' argument.

    Eric Raymond and friends come up with the term ``open source''. They apply for trademark status and put up the opensource.org web site. Thus begins the formal effort to push Linux for corporate use.

    March 1998
    Consumer advocate Ralph Nader asks the large PC vendors (Dell, Gateway, Micron, etc.) to offer non-Microsoft systems, including systems with Linux installed.

    April 1998
    Linux is covered by the US National Public Radio news, marking one of its first appearances in the mainstream, nontechnical press.

    O'Reilly holds the ``first ever'' Free Software Summit, featuring Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Eric Allman, Phil Zimmermann, Eric Raymond and Paul Vixie.

    May 1998
    The Google search engine pops up. Not only is it one of the best search engines around, but it's based on Linux and features a Linux-specific search page.

    Big databases start to arrive. Support for Linux is announced by Computer Associates for their Ingres system and by Ardent Software for their O2 object database.

    June 1998
    ``Like a lot of products that are free, you get a loyal following even though it's small. I've never had a customer mention Linux to me.''--Bill Gates, PC Week, June 25, 1998

    ``...these operating systems will not find widespread use in mainstream commercial applications in the next three years, nor will there be broad third-party application support.''--The Gartner Group says there is little hope for free software.

    A Datapro study comes out showing that Linux has the highest user satisfaction of any system; it also shows Linux to be the only system other than Microsoft Windows NT that is increasing its market share.

    IBM announces that it will distribute and support the Apache web server after working a deal with the Apache team.

    July 1998
    The desktop wars rage as KDE and GNOME advocates hurl flames at each other. Linus gets in on the act, saying that KDE is okay with him. In this context, KDE 1.0 is released. The first stable release of the K Desktop Environment proves to be popular, despite the complaints from those who do not like the licensing of the Qt library.

    Informix quietly releases software for Linux. Meanwhile, Oracle beats Informix to the punch PR-wise and makes a Linux-friendly announcement first, suggesting that they would soon be supporting Linux. Oracle promises to make a trial version available by the end of 1998, a deadline they beat by months. This, seemingly, was one of the acid tests for the potential of long-term success for Linux; a great deal of attention resulted from both Informix's and Oracle's announcements.

    Informix announces support for Linux effectively moments after Oracle does so. Sybase later announces their support for Linux also.

    Linus appears on the cover of Forbes magazine. A lengthy story presents Linux in a highly positive manner and brings the system to the attention of many who had never heard of it before. Linux begins to become a household word.

    September 1998
    LinuxToday.com is launched by Dave Whitinger and Dwight Johnson. The site, later acquired by Internet.com, arguably becomes the most well-read and visited Linux portal of all time.

    Microsoft's Steve Ballmer admits that they are ``worried'' about free software and suggests that some of the Windows NT source code may be made available to developers. The same month Microsoft goes on to list Linux as a competitive threat in its annual SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) filing. Speculation abounds that their real purpose is to influence the upcoming antitrust trial.

    October 1998
    ``For the moment, however, the company from Redmond, Washington, seems almost grateful for the rising profile of Linux, seeing it as an easy way of demonstrating that Windows is not a monopoly, ahead of its antitrust trial, scheduled to begin on October 15. That may be short-sighted. In the long run, Linux and other open-source programs could cause Mr. Gates much grief.''--The Economist, October 3, 1998

    Intel and Netscape (and two venture capital firms) announce minority investments in Red Hat Software. The money is to be used to build an ``enterprise support division'' within Red Hat. An unbelievable amount of press is generated by this event, which is seen as a big-business endorsement of Linux.

    Corel announces that WordPerfect 8 for Linux will be downloadable for free for ``personal use''. They also announce a partnership with Red Hat to supply Linux for the Netwinder.

    December 1998
    A report from IDC says that Linux shipments rose by more than 200% in 1998, and its market share rose by more than 150%. Linux has a 17% market share and a growth rate unmatched by any other system on the market.

    January 1999
    ``Microsoft Corp. will shout it out to the world when Windows 2000 finally ships. Linux creator Linus Torvalds announced the arrival of the next generation of Linux, version 2.2, with a simple note to the Linux-kernel mailing list.''--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Sm@rt Reseller

    Samba 2.0 is released. It contains a reverse-engineered implementation of the Microsoft domain controller protocols, allowing Linux servers to provide complete services to Windows networks.

    Hewlett-Packard and Compaq announce plans to offer Linux-based systems. Later, Dell also announces plans to begin selling Linux-installed systems. SGI contents itself with providing information on how to bring up Linux on its systems.

    Loki Entertainment Software announces that it will port Civilization: Call to Power to Linux.

    February 1999
    Linux and BSD users unite for ``Windows Refund Day''. They visit Microsoft, hoping to return the unused Windows licenses that they were forced to acquire when they purchased a computer system bundled with the OS.

    March 1999
    ``Like a Russian revolutionary erased from a photograph, he is being written out of history. Stallman is the originator of the Free Software movement and the GNU/Linux operating system. But you wouldn't know it from reading about LinuxWorld (Expo). Linus Torvalds got all the ink.''--Leander Kahney, Wired magazine, March 1999

    The first LinuxWorld Conference and Expo is held in San Jose, California. As the first big commercial ``tradeshow'' event for Linux, it serves notice to the world that Linux has arrived; 12,000 people are said to have attended.

    Linux Magazine debuts, bringing some additional competition to the Linux print business. Later, other magazines rise and fall including Open, Journal of Linux Technology (JOLT) and Maximum Linux.

    VA Research buys the Linux.com domain for $1,000,000 and announces plans to turn it into a Linux portal. Microsoft's rumored bid for the domain is frustrated.

    April 1999
    ``...please imagine what it is like to see an idealistic project stymied and made ineffective because people don't usually give it the credit for what it has done. If you're an idealist like me, that can ruin your whole decade.''--Richard Stallman on GNU/Linux

    Al Gore's presidential campaign web site claims to be open source. That claim is gone, but the site still claims: ``In the spirit of the Open Source movement, we have established the Gore 2000 Volunteer Source Code Project; www.algore2000.com is an 'open site'."

    HP announces 24/7 support services for the Caldera, Turbolinux, Red Hat and SuSE distributions. They also release OpenMail for Linux.

    The Linux FreeS/WAN Project releases a free IPSec implementation, allowing Linux to function as a VPN gateway using what is now the industry standard.

    ``But the mere fact that there is now an official SEC document that includes the text of the GPL serves as fairly astonishing proof that the rules of the software business really are being rewritten.''--Andrew Leonard, Salon

    May 1999
    ``Those two little words--open source--have become a magical incantation, like portal in 1998 or push in 1997. Just whisper them and all will be yours: media attention, consumer interest and, of course, venture capital.''--Andrew Leonard, Wired

    August 1999
    First Intel IA-64 ``Merced'' silicon. Although Intel had given simulators to several OS vendors, Linux is the only OS to run on the new architecture on its first day. The Register headline: ``Merced silicon happens: Linux runs, NT doesn't''.

    SGI announces the 1400L--a Linux-based server system. SGI also announces a partnership with Red Hat and begins contributing to kernel development in a big way.

    Red Hat's initial public offering happens; a last-minute repricing helps to create difficulties for people participating in the community offering. The stock price immediately rises to $50; a value that seems high at the time.

    ``For the umpteenth time, someone paved paradise, put up a parking lot. For the thousands of Linux coders who've built the utopian open-source movement--offering free help to create a free operating system--the IPO of Red Hat Software was a sure sign of Wall Street cutting the ribbon on the new Linux mall.''--The Industry Standard

    Motorola jumps into Linux announcements of embedded systems products, support and training services, and a partnership with Lineo.

    Sun acquires StarDivision; it announces plans to release StarOffice under the Sun Community Source License and to make a web-enabled version of the office suite.

    September 1999
    ``'Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. in Burlington, New Jersey is spending $1 million or so to buy 1,250 Linux-equipped PCs from Dell, but it won't pay Red Hat a dime for support', says Michael Prince, chief information officer. 'I suppose Red Hat's business model makes sense to somebody, but it makes no sense to us', he says.''--Daniel Lyons, Forbes, May 31, 1999. Then in September, Burlington ended up purchasing support from Red Hat.

    The first big Linux stock rush happens. Shares in Applix more than double in volume, reaching nearly 27 million shares--three times the 9 million shares that are actually on the market.

    SCO trashes Linux in a brochure distributed in Northern Europe: ``Linux at this moment can be considered more a plaything for IT students rather than a serious operating system in which to place the functioning, security and future of a business. Because Linux is basically a free-for-all it means that no individual person/company is accountable should anything go wrong, plus there is no way to predict which way Linux will evolve.''

    Stock in Red Hat hits $135/share. The price seems unbelievably high at the time.

    October 1999
    Sun Microsystems announces that it will release the source to Solaris under the Sun Community Source License. The actual release drew criticism: ``In a move aimed at Linux, Sun said it will announce Wednesday that it is making the source code for its new Solaris 8 operating system 'open'. Webster's has lots of definitions for the word, including 'not sealed, fastened, or locked'. But when you dig into the details of Sun's announcement, you'll find that what it is offering doesn't come close to meeting the dictionary's definition, let alone that of the Open Source movement.''--Lawrence Aragon, Redherring.com, January 26, 2000

    November 1999
    ``...if there's one thing about Linux users, they're do-ers, not whiners.''--Andy Patrizio,

    Red Hat buys Cygnus for almost $700 million in stock. Rumors of other acquisitions by Red Hat begin to circulate and show no signs of stopping.

    December 1999
    VA Linux Systems goes public after two repricings (originally priced at $11-$13/share). The final IPO price is $30/share; that price rises immediately to $300 before closing around $250. It sets the record for the biggest IPO rise in the history of the NASDAQ.

    ``Gee. Remember when the big question was 'How do we make money at this?'''--Eric Raymond

    January 2000
    VA Linux Systems announces SourceForge (although the site had actually been up and running since November 1999). SourceForge also makes the code for its operation available under the GPL. By the end of the year, SourceForge hosted over 12,000 projects and 92,000 registered developers.

    Version 1.0 of Red Flag Linux is released in the People's Republic of China.

    Transmeta breaks its long silence and tells the world what it has been up to--the Crusoe chip, of course.

    The Linux Professional Institute announces the availability of its first Linux professional certification exam.

    Linux wannabe press releases flow from companies trying to ride on the success of Linux stocks. Vitamins.com, for example, posts the following: ``Vitamins.com has further distinguished itself in the competitive Internet health industry race by being one of the first to integrate the Linux Operating System, produced by Red Hat, the leading developer and provider of open-source software solutions.''

    February 2000
    The latest IDC report suggests that Linux now ranks as the ``second-most-popular operating system for server computers'', with 25% of the server operating system sales in 1999. Windows NT is first with 38% and NetWare ranks third with 19%. IDC previously predicted that Linux would get up to the number two position--in 2002 or 2003. The revolution appears to be well ahead of schedule.

    VA Linux Systems acquisition of Andover.net in a high-profile purchase that values Andover shares at 0.425 of VA's, or roughly $50/share. Andover.net is the owner of the popular web sites Slashdot.org and Freshmeat.net.

    LinuxMall.com and Frank Kaspar and Associates also have made plans to merge. LinuxMall.com has been at the top of the retail side of Linux almost since the very beginning; Kaspar is one of the largest distribution channels.

    Red Hat wins InfoWorld's ``Product of the Year'' award for the fourth time in a row.

    March 2000
    ``The law in open code means that no actor can gain ultimate control over open-source code. Even the kings can't get ultimate control over the code. For example, if Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux kernel, tried to steer GNU/Linux in a way that others in the community rejected, then others in the community could always have removed the offending part and gone in a different way. This threat constrains the kings; they can only lead where they know the people will follow.''--``Innovation, Regulation, and the Internet'' by Lawrence Lessig for The American Prospect.

    A new version of LILO is posted that is able to get past the 1024-cylinder boot limit that has plagued PC systems for years.

    The latest Netcraft survey shows Apache running on just over 60% of the Web.

    Caldera Systems goes public after a short delay, on March 21. The stock, which was offered at $14/share, began trading at $26 and closed at $29.44. It thus registered a 110% gain on its first day.

    ``Caldera knows of no company that has built a profitable business based in whole or in part on open-source software.''--Caldera SEC filing

    Walnut Creek (the parent company for Slackware) and BSDi announce their merger. Yahoo! will be taking an equity investment in the new company.

    Motorola Computer Group announces the release of its HA Linux distribution. This distribution is aimed at telecommunications applications that require very high amounts of uptime; it includes hot-swap capability and is available for the i386 and PowerPC architectures.

    The Embedded Linux Consortium is announced. Its goal is ``to amplify the depth, breadth and speed of Linux adoption in the enormous embedded computer market''. The initial leader will be Rick Lehrbaum, the man behind the LinuxDevices.com and DesktopLinux.com web sites, among other things.

    Ericsson announces its ``Screen Phone HS210'' product--a Linux-based telephone with a touchscreen that can be used for e-mail, web browsing, etc. Ericsson and Opera Software also announce that Ericsson's (Linux-based) HS210 Screen Phone will incorporate the Opera web browser.

    April 2000
    Code is ruled to be speech. On April 4, 2000, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit published its decision regarding Peter Junger's challenge to the Export Administration Regulations that prevented him from posting information on the Internet that contained cryptographic example code. Most critical in the ruling: ``Because computer source code is an expressive means for the exchange of information and ideas about computer programming, we hold that it is protected by the First Amendment.''

    Andy Tanenbaum releases the the Minix operating system under the BSD license. Had Minix been open source from the beginning, Linux may never have happened.

    May 2000
    SuSE releases the first supported Linux distribution for the IBM S/390 mainframe.

    ``Approximately 140 distribution companies exist across the globe. We believe all but the top five will be bought, will go out of business or will be relegated to insignificance. Market-share leaders are currently defined around geographic boundaries. Red Hat has the largest global brand recognition and leading North American market share; SuSE leads in Europe, Turbolinux leads in Asia, and Conectiva leads in South America.''--Keith Bachman, an analyst for WR Hambrecht, predicting in The Red Herring

    June 2000
    Commercial considerations help prompt the relicensing of MySQL under the GPL. Now the two freely available databases that are widely used in the Linux and Free Software communities, PostgreSQL and MySQL, meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the Open Source Guidelines. In addition, Progress Software forms a new company, NuSphere, just for the purpose of supporting MySQL.

    July 2000
    ``In a world of NDA-bound business agreements, Debian is an open book. In a world of mission statements, Debian has a social contract. At a time when commercial distributors are striving to see how much proprietary software they can pack into a box of Linux, Debian remains the bastion of software freedom--living proof that you can have a fully functional and usable operating system without needing any proprietary code.''--Evan Leibovitch, ZDNet

    Sun announces that StarOffice is to be released under the GPL. The code is going to be reworked, integrated with Bonobo and GTK, and released as a set of reusable components. StarOffice will also be reworked to use a set of open XML-based file formats.

    Oracle's Linux-based internet appliance system hits the shelves. The ``New Internet Computer'' (NIC) is the latest result of Larry Ellison's long personal crusade to make non-Microsoft systems available to the world. It's aimed at people who only want access to the Net; as such, it's essentially a $199 (without monitor) X terminal.

    Reports first appear that SCO may be purchased by Caldera. Later in 2000 Caldera and SCO announce their intent for Caldera International to be formed from Caldera's existing operation and two of SCO's three divisions.

    Ted Ts'o steps forward to become the new 2.4 status list maintainer. Alan Cox was doing the job until he said that it was time to ``find someone else to maintain it''. Ted Ts'o responded to Linus' subsequent call for a new status list maintainer.

    August 2000
    HP, Intel, IBM and NEC announce the ``Open Source Development Lab'', which makes large hardware available to Linux developers for benchmarking and testing.

    September 2000
    ``I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work if it just results in what I consider to be a better system.''--Linus Torvalds trying to change his image.

    The RSA patent expires, allowing for secure web transactions without proprietary software.

    Trolltech releases the Qt library under the GPL, putting a definitive end to a long-running and unpleasant license flame war.

    The CueCat fiasco begins. Digital Convergence attempts to shut down programmers who have written Linux drivers for its CueCat bar code scanner. The company has given out large numbers of these scanners for free, expecting people to use them with its proprietary software and web site. The threats cause the drivers to become marginally harder to find for a short period, after which the company declares victory and moves on.

    October 2000
    Microsoft says that penguins can mutate in a European print ad that quickly becomes famous.

    December 2000
    ``I was dumbfounded to discover that installing Linux was easy. Why? Well, the world has changed. No more do you have to understand everything about Linux before you install it, downloading the many chunks of code necessary to run a complete system and getting them all to work together. That was BSW--before shrink-wrap. With companies such as Red Hat and Corel putting all the software you need in a box, the pain is (nearly) gone.''--John Schwartz, Washington Post

    IBM announces plans to invest $1 billion in Linux in 2001.

    January 2001
    The long-awaited 2.4.0 kernel was released on January 4.

    The US National Security Agency (NSA) releases SELinux under the GPL. SELinux offers an additional layer of security checks in addition to the standard UNIX-like permissions system.

    March 2001
    The Linux 2.5 kernel summit is held in San Jose, California; it is, perhaps, the most complete gathering of Linux kernel hackers in history.

    April 2001
    IBM gets into trouble over its ``Peace, Love and Linux'' graffiti in several cities.

    ``Slackware has always made money (who else producing a commercial distribution can say that?), but with BSDi we ended up strapped to a sinking ship.''--Patrick Volkerding

    May 2001
    Sony's PlayStation Linux kit, shipped in Japan, sells out in eight minutes despite a doubling of the available stock.

    June 2001
    Sharp announces its upcoming Linux PDA based on Lineo's Embedix system.

    VA Linux Systems exits the hardware business, choosing to focus on SourceForge instead. Later VA drops the word ``Linux'' from its name altogether, relaunching as VA Software Corporation.

    ``In a press release issued Wednesday afternoon, VA Linux CEO Larry M. Augustin called the shift in strategy a logical move. 'Our differentiating strength has always been our software expertise', Augustin said''.--Wired. You only thought VA was a hardware company.

    July 2001
    Free Dmitry! Dmitry Sklyarov is arrested in Las Vegas after Adobe complains about the Advanced eBook Processor. The following month he is charged with DMCA violations and conspiracy: the potential penalties add up to 25 years in prison. Dmitry's defense is based on constitutional challenges to the DMCA, on free speech and jurisdictional issues. Later in the year, charges are dropped, conditional on one year of good behavior and testimony in the ElcomSoft trial.

    ``Although Adobe withdrew its support for the criminal complaint against Dmitry Sklyarov, we respect the grand jury and federal government's decision to prosecute the company, ElcomSoft, and as a law-abiding corporate citizen, Adobe intends to cooperate fully with the government as required by law.''--Adobe's position

    November 2001
    Sharp Electronics Corporation begins a special Linux developer prerelease of the Zaurus PDA to attract free software developers to the hot new platform.

    February 2002
    Avaya, the former PBX and enterprise systems division of Lucent, announces Linux-based PBX systems.

    ``So there are some--and I'd list myself among them--who believe that the return to Earth is a good thing. There's nothing wrong with making a buck, but Linux doesn't benefit from being elevated beyond reality on a shaky foundation.''--Evan Leibovitch takes a look at the post-rush world of Linux.

  • Starting 1991? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mpawlo ( 260572 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:19PM (#3931821) Homepage
    I am sorry, but how can you start a Linux timeline in 1991? I would have started much earlier on MIT's lab for artificial intelligence. Does anyone really believe that Linux would have been such a success story without its license [gnu.org]?

    Regards

    Mikael

    • Re:Starting 1991? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dizco ( 20340 )
      Because its a timeline of the history of Linux not the GPL.

      Does anyone really beleive that Linux would have been a success story without humans? No, probably not, but the history of humanity isn't covered because its not the point.

      --sean
    • I am sorry, but how can you think that some license has anything to do with the birth of the Linux? If we are writing the timeline of Linux, then the line starts from the birth of the innovation - and the software. Not from some license.

      • Re:Starting 1991? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by extrasolar ( 28341 )

        Actually, he's right.

        While it seems they had to pick what they considered the top 100 important events, surely the writing of the GNU GPL has to be more important to the development of Linux than many of the other things they choose to put in. Someone else responded that ESR publishing CatB was also not on there. CatB is really what made the term "Open Source" stick (people were calling it free software before then).

        In all, the timeline seems to favor a lot of the publicity the operating system has had rather than many of the things that actually attracted developer interest.

        Maybe Corel releasing a short-lived distribution and porting Word Perfect gained a lot of interest in the press, but it had no effect on my use of the OS.

        Also, the GNU project seems to be strangely ignored (other than quotes from RMS saying how GNU has been ignored). There is still an incomplete GNU system out there, most components are still being developed, and these components are what make the system viable at all. Its just that both GNU and Linux are free so they have become rather indistinguishable in that they complement each other (people haven't found a need yet to write a serious competitor to the Gimp, or gcc, because they are free software).

        So RMS does have a point when calling the system GNU/Linux, even if his advocacy is lacking somewhat in the finesse department :)

        Of course, there are other projects like X Windows and TeX that GNU "adopted" as well as large contributions by Red Hat (which still makes its contributions free even with competitors that make some of their distributions binary-only). But somehow I doubt that these developments, while important, would make it into the top 100.

        Personally, I love the LWN yearly timelines. They go into quite a bit more detail and thus lack these kinds of biases.

        In my opinion, I would rank these things as important to the operating system in this order:

        1. ESR publishes CatB
        2. Mozilla becomes free software
        3. RMS writes the GNU GPL
        4. Linus releases Linux
        5. Linux 1.0 is released
        6. The launching of the GNOME and KDE Projects

        more or less :)

    • RMS gave up all claim on linux ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hayden ( 9724 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @09:13PM (#3934399)
      When he rejected it in favour of the Hurd. If it wasn't for Linux there still wouldn't be a usable GNU OS (seeing as the Hurd still isn't a full kernel) and MS would rule the world.

      He passed on the chance to make it GNU/Linux and now it's Linux with a bunch of GNU apps. Arrogance and short sightedness is a bitch like that.

  • Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by taviso ( 566920 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:21PM (#3931835) Homepage
    Mirror, if anyones interested [decsystem.org].

  • Milestone #101 (Score:4, Funny)

    by DasBub ( 139460 ) <dasbub&dasbub,com> on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:24PM (#3931851) Homepage
    February 11th, 1999

    I stop pronouncing it "Line-Ux"

    • Blockquote DasBub:

      February 11th, 1999

      I stop pronouncing it "Line-Ux"

      I'll stop calling it ``Line-icks'' when Americans stop calling the country, ``Finland,'' and start calling it, ``Suomi.'' That, of course, will be shortly after the evening news starts talking about Norge and Sverige.

      Cheers,

      b&

      • Re:Milestone #101 (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You can continue calling it Finland and at the same time pronounce Linux correctly since Finland is called Finland in Swedish which happens to be an official language in Finland. (As you probably know Linus speaks Swedish)

  • Another timeline (Score:2, Informative)

    by some*dud3 ( 593786 )
    another time line> [lwn.net] This one is little bit longer and complete. And it is still available

  • SLS (Score:1)

    by RatBastard ( 949 )
    I installed SLS back in 1993, IIRC. Downloaded it with my brand-new 14.4K modem. One of the last diskettes in one of the sets (I think it might have been X) was bad and I had to start over. I used it for a few months, then nuked that partition and gave it back to DOS.

    I've tried again with RedHat 4.0, 5.0 and 7.2, and I keep nuking the install and giving the drive space back to Windows.
  • There was nothing in the article about the technical progress of Linux. It was all external uses of Linux. Interesting to some people. But I wanted to see stuff like: May 13, 1994: Donald Becker (becker@cesdis) writes the first 3Com driver.

    Those are the tear-jerking memories that I wanna read about!
  • Having some sort of Linux management system would defeat the purpose of open-source. Distros competing against each other will, in the end, greatly improve the product for the consumer.

  • crappy timeline (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dutky ( 20510 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:34PM (#3931934) Homepage Journal
    How can anyone claim to have a meaningful Linux timeline that doesn't even include the dates of the major kernel releases or the publication of CatB (or the Halloween documents)? Are we really supposed to believe that nothing important happened to the Linux community for over a year and a half between April 1995 and January 1997?

    What a load of self-serving garbage.

    • The Halloween documents hold special interest for me, as, IIRC, I first installed Linux about six weeks prior to their release. I was looking for some Linux help, and stumbled upon this crappy site (slashdot, if memory serves:). While I got no Linux help, I did get an earfull about what MicroSoft thought of it.

      • The Halloween documents hold special interest for me, as, IIRC, I first installed Linux about six weeks prior to their release.I was looking for some Linux help, and stumbled upon this crappy site (slashdot, if memory serves:)

        Funny, exactly the same thing happened to me. I just started with Linux before the Halloween documents were released. I wonder how many others who have /. UIDs close to ours are in the same boat? :)

        • I got here a week or two before the Halloween papers came out (it was the weekend of the "JWZ is dead" backlash), and my ID is about one-fourth of you guys so that must have been about the time that Slashdot's audience size began burgeoning.

          Just think, I enjoyed two or three pre Jon Katz weeks here. Of course it wasn't 'til Columbine that he really started bringing in the jerks.

          I'm not sure if the Halloween papers should be on the timeline or not. They were a big deal at the time, but they aren't strictly any part of the development of Linux, just the reaction to it.

      • yeah...uh, still need a hand? :)
        • Not unless you want to help me use linuxfromscratch to make a cross-compiled distribution:)

          I found some better sites, bought some ORA books, and figured it out. Mostly.

          • Yargh! Sorry, can't help you.

            But that has piqued my curiosity...I'll have to read up on that.
            • Cross-compiled LFS distro has to wait. Debian decided to eat my '/var' partition. Spent a few hours looking for a way to recover other than just reinstalling.

              Yes, 'restore from backups' would have been a fantastic idea. Had I ever finished setting up amanda.

    • The halloween documents were a classic. I also believe the gpl should of been mentioned as well as the creation of minux and kde. I believe between april 95 and jan 97, kde was probably the most ground breaking development ever made for linux. I do not know why its not listed. Kde was the first and very sucessfull attempt to create a programmable desktop environment and not just a windows manager. Gnome came next but it would probably not exist if it weren't for kde. Many newbies would of been turned off instantly upon seeing twm and fvwm2 on a defualt install. It drove me crazy that I had to add all of my apps one by one to a menu. Especially if you installed over a 1,000 apps at once. yuck. Would Linux be where it is today in terms of marketshare with just twm and Windowmaker? I surely think not. I believe the desktop environments of gnome and kde is what caused many to view Linux as an alternative to Microsoft and not Unix. Like what Linus said "all of the exciting things are happening in user space...".

  • Who coined "Open Source"? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ke4roh ( 590577 ) <jimes AT hiwaay DOT net> on Monday July 22, 2002 @02:45PM (#3932003) Homepage Journal
    February 1998
    Eric Raymond and friends come up with the term "open source". They apply for trademark status and put up the opensource.org [opensource.org] web site.
    I thought that looked suspiciously recent for the term "open source", so, in a few minutes of Google groups searching, the earliest reference I found was October 1989, in a post by Chris McDonald [google.com] from White Sands Missile Range, but he was not talking specifically about computer program source code - just information.

    In December 1990, folks were discussing "open source" software [google.com], particularly BSD. Thad Florian quoted Kent Paul Dolan using the term, then used it himself.

    • Intelligence (Score:3, Informative)

      by N8F8 ( 4562 )
      "Open Source" is also a term used in the US intellegence community to refer to publicly available information (news, journals, speeches, etc.)
    • Purpotedly McAfee was using the term "open source" over a year before Eric Raymond, according to the timeline:

      January 1997
      `In fact it's probably easier to write a virus for Linux because it's open source and the code is available...''--Wishful thinking from McAfe

    • Re:Who coined "Open Source"? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The term "open source" has been used in intelligence (spy) circles to mean "public information" for many years.
    • The term "open source" as a replacement for "free software" was coined at a conference sponsored by Tim O'Reilly. There was a lot of free software pings, especially those interested in its commercial value. RMS wasn't invited. Cygnus Support was there, and offered their own trademarked term, SourceWare, but it was rejected. I don't know exactly who came up with the "Open Source", it may have been ESR.

      The term "open sources" has obviously been used by information gathering paople, such as journalists, for publically available sources, such as libraries. But a quick look through google confirms that it hasn't been used before the conference for software, except in messages such as "error: could not open source file".

      Unfortunately, the term has lost a lot of its value recently, since many paople think it just mean "has source code available", rather than the precise meaning coined at the conference.
  • A fairly complete history of Linux, to be sure. But they're certaintly missing a rather important piece. The birth of a symbol! Well, here's me cleaning up their mess. Go here -> Tux History [nd.edu]
  • Ok, I read the entire timeline.. yes I have far too much time on my hands.. but, why is Dmitry Sklyarov's arrest at Defcon last year included? This has absolutely nothing to do with Linux, and is completely separate geek news. They don't even pretend to try to tie it into Linux. As far as I can tell, the E-Book software in question only runs in windows anyways..

  • Awfully sunshiney... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not trying to be a Troll here... but I think it would be only fair to have some of the not-so-great events in there. Like I read the quote from Raymond about making money with Linux... but none of the following timeline entries mention all the Linux companies falling over.

    Let's put the bad in with the good... it's been a great ride, but it has had some bumps along the way...
  • History is that collection of facts we agree to agree on. Everything else is the propagandaist revisionism of losers.
  • ...but where's the lowlights? It couldn't have been roses all the time! What about the unstable bits in the 2.4 kernels and the VM debacle?

    Frankly, if they decide to show all the Microsoft lowlights, they might as well show all the Linux lowlights too!

    Make no mistake. If we don't learn from our mistakes in the past, we will not continue. A timeline that lists all the obstacles Linux had to overcome (legal, architectural and social) would be much nicer.

    Ah well... I'm biased. I dig Linux.
  • Strange, slashdot isn't mentioned as an important part of the Linux community. It mentions Google though. I'd have to say that Slashdot does more for Linux than Google being on Linux does.
  • May 1998


    The Google search engine pops up. Not only is it one of the best search engines around, but it's based on Linux and features a Linux-specific search page.
    Forgive me if I'm unfamiliar with this, as I was busy begging for my first full-time position....but what's up with the Linux-specific search page? I'm assuming that means that a Linux-centric page popped up when Google detected a OS-TYPE that contained Linux?
  • Good timeline, but they seem to spend alot of time trumpeting the incredible stock prices of Linux companies - for example, Red Hat in the 200's and VA in the 300's. However, if you're gonna present something as an advantage, you've got to present all sides of the story. RedHat dipped below $4, and VA is under a buck now. (Over the last 2 years, the Dow has lost about 20%, while RedHat has lost about 80%!) Not to mention the scores of Linux based companies that have gone under. I think they should have left the stock prices and juvenile IPO stories out; they only undermine the success and quality of the operating system.

  • Linux is dying (Score:3, Funny)

    by Higher Authority ( 245970 ) <thatoneguy@aaronjangel.us> on Monday July 22, 2002 @09:41PM (#3934504) Homepage

    This just in: Linux is about as dead as (if not moreso than) BSD. Yes, it's true, Linux is dying at about twice the rate, possibly even more, than BSD.

    For the clueful readers: this is just an attempt to see how many /. readers will actually skip reading this comment completely, and reply with raving banter glorifying Linux, as I'm sure they will no doubt do so any chance they get. Indeed, Linux is dying at twice the rate if not more than BSD. If you take into account the fact that BSD is thriving, then you'd realize that the above comment makes perfect sense: Linux is thriving twice as much BSD, and if not, then my guess is only a wildly inaccurate low figure.

    This is in response to all the postings that BSD is dead or dying in many of the numerous threads on Slashdot, all of which having about as much warrant as my saying Linux is dying. Yes, this is much like the contents of the subject of this very message you're reading, it's totally false, has no merit whatsoever. That's the point.

    I hope that I prove to at least some people that saying BSD is dead is much like saying Linux is dead. That's hardly accurate. It just so happens that it's much easier to *see* that Linux isn't dead, than it is to see BSD isn't dead, given the fact that many of you are using Linux at this very moment, or at the very least, have Linux installed and devote some amount of time to it.

    Indeed, I am using BSD right now, and I know for a fact that it's not dead. But, I also take enough time to realize that Linux isn't dead either.

    This is an experiment, the results of which should prove quite interesting, if not very entertaining. Enjoy!

    • Hmm... I guess my fbsd corporate production server is dying and I just never noticed.

      Linux was created becuase *BSD was being sued by AT&T and not available. Linux got a head start. Even so.. netcraft still reports fbsd as top dawg in the server world. Hugh corporations with insane daily process (Yahoo.com, walnutcreek, etc) must have been crazy to use a "dying" OS. Even after the AT&T suits and Linux was available also :)

      Brew that linux lovers.

      Neurosys
    • WINDOWS IS DYING! We, Linux and *BSD users should stop this war and unite against commercial competitors such as microshit^H^H^H^Hsoft who spread FUD about our fine OSs. I've got 2 PC boxes and I use both FreeBSD (4.5) and Linux (Gentoo) and I love them both. Absolutely excellent OSs, both of them!

  • TiVo? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm a bit surprised that TiVo, probably the most successful Linux consumer rollout ever, was completely overlooked by this article.
  • As ever, /.'s run an article that has some potential for raising the GNU vs Linux (vs BSD vs Unix ...) spectre. Yawn...

    If the linux kernel had been released using the BSD license it would still be popular
    Why do I mention this? The point is that *how* the project is run has a lot more to do with how the development is managed than the details of the license. BSD *could* just as easily be run as a bazaar [tuxedo.org] and I've seen plenty of GPL-licensed projects whither on the vine because for one reason or another the founders don't allow adequate control to the 'troops'. And OSS troops have a way of voting with their feet when projects don't meet their needs.

    Many of todays license 'zealots' are seriously misinformed
    I have read opinions on /. that BSD is somehow beholden to GNU because because "most of BSD is GPL code" Of course this is nonsense, yes lots of GPL code runs on BSD and some (e.g. gcc) is indeed part of the *BSD variants. However people who actually use the BSD's have probably observed that most of the OS tools are not the GPL variants; ls, cat, more ... are all quite different on BSD vs Linux. Hell, OpenBSD (the only current BSD I use) provides csh, and it's /bin/sh is a POSIX shell, not bash.

    For all the "idealism" RMS and FSF are practical in what they do
    Myth would have us believe that Linus is the king of practical and RMS will sacrifice no practicality on the alter of the GPL. I'm sorry but facts do not bear this out.

    In '93 when I chose to push a little corporate $$ at FSF I purchased tapes for GCC, emacs, X11 and various GNU utilities. FSF was as happy to accept their $150 fee for X11 as the GNU pieces. Later, when Linux had quite enlivened the opensource arena RMS (in '98 I think) decided that the X license was bad (I think this is the same timeframe as he started in on the GNU/Linux rants).

    I think it's notable that RMS/fsf have redoubled their efforts on the Linux kernel at the time that Hurd is finaly ready for prime time. I wish them well in yet another attempt to balkanize the landscape, I'm sure the Debian folks at least will be on the bandwagon ...Ho-hum ...

    Now it's time for the ad-hominem ??
    I'm sure RMS is a fine guy, and there are things about him that I find admirable. However, I truly find the tune he dances to to be all about RMS. Over the years he's used whatever tactic seems best to push his personal agenda. Honestly if I want to play power games I'd far prefer to do it in a context of leathersex [everything2.com] or BDSM [everything2.com], which is a helluva lot more fun way to play power games imo.

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