Linux began in 1991 as a personal project by

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

student

Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also c ...

: to create a new free operating system kernel. The resulting

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

has been marked by constant growth throughout its history. Since the initial release of its

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

in 1991, it has grown from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to the 4.15 version in 2018 with more than 23.3 million lines of source code, not counting comments, under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

v2.

Events leading to creation

After

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

had dropped out of the

Multics Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...

project, the

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

operating system was conceived and implemented by

Ken Thompson Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programmi ...

and

Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B p ...

(both of

AT&T Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

) in 1969 and first released in 1970. Later they rewrote it in a new programming language, C, to make it portable. The availability and portability of Unix caused it to be widely adopted, copied and modified by academic institutions and businesses. In 1977, the

Berkeley Software Distribution The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

(BSD) was developed by the

Computer Systems Research Group The Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) was a research group at the University of California, Berkeley that was dedicated to enhancing AT&T Unix operating system and funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. History Professor Bo ...

(CSRG) from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

, based on the 6th edition of Unix from AT&T. Since BSD contained Unix code that AT&T owned, AT&T filed a lawsuit (''

USL v. BSDi ''USL v. BSDi'' was a lawsuit brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories against Berkeley Software Design, Inc and the Regents of the University of California over intellectual property related to the Unix operating system; a ...

'') in the early 1990s against the University of California. This strongly limited the development and adoption of BSD.

Onyx Systems Onyx primarily refers to the parallel banded variety of chalcedony, a silicate mineral. Agate and onyx are both varieties of layered chalcedony that differ only in the form of the bands: agate has curved bands and onyx has parallel bands. The c ...

began selling early microcomputer-based Unix workstations in 1980. Later,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

, founded as a spin-off of a student project at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, also began selling Unix-based desktop workstations in 1982. While Sun workstations didn't utilize commodity PC hardware like Linux was later developed for, it represented the first successful commercial attempt at distributing a primarily single-user microcomputer that ran a Unix operating system. In 1983,

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

started the

GNU project The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and computing devices by collaborati ...

with the goal of creating a free UNIX-like operating system. As part of this work, he wrote the

(GPL). By the early 1990s, there was almost enough available software to create a full operating system. However, the GNU kernel, called

Hurd GNU Hurd is a collection of microkernel servers written as part of GNU, for the GNU Mach microkernel. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation, designed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, an ...

, failed to attract enough development effort, leaving GNU incomplete. In 1985,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

released the

80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistorsx86 microprocessor with a

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...

instruction set In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...

and a

memory management unit A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit having all memory references passed through itself, primarily performing the translation of virtual memory addresses to physical ad ...

with

paging In computer operating systems, memory paging is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from secondary storage for use in main memory. In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage ...

. In 1986, Maurice J. Bach, of AT&T Bell Labs, published '' The Design of the UNIX Operating System''. This definitive description principally covered the System V Release 2 kernel, with some new features from Release 3 and BSD. In 1987, MINIX, a Unix-like system intended for academic use, was released by

Andrew S. Tanenbaum Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum (born March 16, 1944), sometimes referred to by the handle ast, is an American-Dutch computer scientist and professor emeritus of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is the author ...

to exemplify the principles conveyed in his

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textboo ...

, '' Operating Systems: Design and Implementation''. While source code for the system was available, modification and redistribution were restricted. In addition, MINIX's

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...

design was not well adapted to the 32-bit features of the increasingly cheap and popular Intel 386 architecture for personal computers. In the early nineties a commercial UNIX operating system for Intel 386 PCs was too expensive for private users. These factors and the lack of a widely adopted, free kernel provided the impetus for Torvalds' starting his project. He has stated that if either the

GNU Hurd GNU Hurd is a collection of microkernel servers written as part of GNU, for the GNU Mach microkernel. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation, designed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, and ...

386BSD 386BSD (also known as "Jolix") is a discontinued Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was released in 1992 and ran on PC-compatible computer systems based on the 32-bit Intel 80386 microprocessor. 386BSD inn ...

kernels had been available at the time, he likely would not have written his own.

The creation of Linux

In 1991, while studying

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

, Linus Torvalds began a project that later became the

. He wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor. Development was done on MINIX using the

GNU C Compiler The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is an optimizing compiler produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages, hardware architectures and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free software ...

. As Torvalds wrote in his book '' Just for Fun'', he eventually ended up writing an operating system kernel. On 25 August 1991, he (at age ) announced this system in a

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

posting to the

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...

"comp.os.minix.": According to Torvalds, Linux began to gain importance in 1992 after the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

was ported to Linux by Orest Zborowski, which allowed Linux to support a

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

for the first time.

Naming

Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of

FUNET FUNET is the Finnish University and Research Network, a backbone network providing Internet connections for Finnish universities and polytechnics as well as other research facilities. It is governed by the state-owned CSC – IT Center for Sc ...

in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at

Helsinki University of Technology Helsinki University of Technology (TKK; fi, Teknillinen korkeakoulu; sv, Tekniska högskolan) was a technical university in Finland. It was located in Otaniemi, Espoo in the metropolitan area of Greater Helsinki. The university was founded in ...

(HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds. Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux". To demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced (), Torvalds included an audio guide () with the kernel source code.

Linux under the GNU GPL

Torvalds first published the Linux kernel under its own licence, which had a restriction on commercial activity. The software to use with the

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

was software developed as part of the GNU project licensed under the GNU General Public License, a free software license. The first release of the Linux kernel, Linux 0.01, included a binary of GNU's Bash shell.Torvalds, Linus:
Notes for linux release 0.01
' kernel.org, 1991. In the "Notes for linux release 0.01", Torvalds lists the GNU software that is required to run Linux: In 1992, he suggested releasing the kernel under the GNU General Public License. He first announced this decision in the release notes of version 0.12. In the middle of December 1992 he published version 0.99 using the GNU GPL.
z-archive of Linux version 0.99
', kernel.org, December 1992 Linux and GNU developers worked to integrate GNU components with Linux to make a fully functional and free operating system. Torvalds has stated, "making Linux GPLed was definitely the best thing I ever did."Hiroo Yamagata

, 30 September 1997 Around 2000, Torvalds clarified that the Linux kernel uses the GPLv2 license, without the common "or later clause". After years of draft discussions, the GPLv3 was released in 2007; however, Torvalds and the majority of kernel developers decided against adopting the new license.

GNU/Linux naming controversy

The designation "Linux" was initially used by Torvalds only for the Linux kernel. The kernel was, however, frequently used together with other software, especially that of the GNU project. This quickly became the most popular adoption of GNU software. In June 1994 in GNU's Bulletin, Linux was referred to as a "free UNIX clone", and the

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

project began calling its product ''Debian GNU/Linux''. In May 1996, Richard Stallman published the editor

Emacs Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...

19.31, in which the type of system was renamed from Linux to Lignux. This spelling was intended to refer specifically to the combination of GNU and Linux, but this was soon abandoned in favor of "GNU/Linux". This name garnered varying reactions. The GNU and Debian projects use the name, although most people simply use the term "Linux" to refer to the combination.

Official mascot

Torvalds announced in 1996 that there would be a mascot for Linux, a penguin. This was because when they were about to select the mascot, Torvalds mentioned he was bitten by a

little penguin The little penguin (''Eudyptula minor'') is a species of penguin from New Zealand. They are commonly known as little blue penguins or blue penguins owing to their slate-blue plumage and are also known by their Māori name . The Australian lit ...

(''Eudyptula minor'') on a visit to the

National Zoo & Aquarium The National Zoo and Aquarium is a privately owned zoo and aquarium in the Australian capital city of Canberra. It is located in Yarralumla at the western end of Lake Burley Griffin, next to Scrivener Dam. It recently had a major expansion, wi ...

in Canberra, Australia.

Larry Ewing Larry Ewing is an American computer programmer who is known as the creator of the Linux mascot, Tux. The artwork was created in 1996, while Ewing was a student at Texas A&M University, originally as a submission to a contest to create the Linux ...

provided the original draft of today's well known mascot based on this description. The name

Tux Black tie is a semi-formal wear, semi-formal Western dress code for evening events, originating in British and American conventions for clothing, attire in the 19th century. In British English, the dress code is often referred to synecdochically ...

was suggested by James Hughes as derivative of ''Torvalds' UniX'', along with being short for ''tuxedo'', a type of suit with color similar to that of a penguin.

New development

Linux Community

The largest part of the work on Linux is performed by the community: the thousands of programmers around the world that use Linux and send their suggested improvements to the maintainers. Various companies have also helped not only with the development of the kernels, but also with the writing of the body of auxiliary software, which is distributed with Linux. As of February 2015, over 80% of Linux kernel developers are paid. It is released both by organized projects such as Debian, and by projects connected directly with companies such as

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

and

openSUSE openSUSE () is a free and open-source software, free and open source RPM Package Manager, RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. Addi ...

. The members of the respective projects meet at various conferences and fairs, in order to exchange ideas. One of the largest of these fairs is the

LinuxTag LinuxTag (the name is a compound with the German language, German ''Tag'' meaning Diet (assembly), assembly, conference or meeting) is a free software computer expo, exposition with an emphasis on Linux (but also BSD), held annually in Germany. Li ...

in Germany, where about 10,000 people assemble annually to discuss Linux and the projects associated with it.

Open Source Development Lab and Linux Foundation

The Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) was created in the year 2000, and is an independent nonprofit organization which pursues the goal of optimizing Linux for employment in data centers and in the carrier range. It served as sponsored working premises for Linus Torvalds and also for Andrew Morton (until the middle of 2006 when Morton transferred to Google). Torvalds worked full-time on behalf of OSDL, developing the Linux kernels. On 22 January 2007, OSDL and the

Free Standards Group The Free Standards Group was an industry non-profit consortium chartered to primarily specify and drive the adoption of open source standards. It was founded on May 8, 2000. All standards developed by the Free Standards Group (FSG) were release ...

merged to form

The Linux Foundation ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

, narrowing their respective focuses to that of promoting

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

in competition with

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. As of 2015, Torvalds remains with the Linux Foundation as a Fellow.

Companies

Despite being freely available, companies profit from Linux. These companies, many of which are also members of the Linux Foundation, invest substantial resources into the advancement and development of Linux, in order to make it suited for various application areas. This includes hardware donations for driver developers, cash donations for people who develop Linux software, and the employment of Linux programmers at the company. Some examples are

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

, IBM and

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

, which validate, use and sell Linux on their own servers, and

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...

(now part of IBM) and

SUSE SUSE ( , ) is a German-based multinational open-source software company that develops and sells Linux products to business customers. Founded in 1992, it was the first company to market Linux for enterprise. It is the developer of SUSE Linux Ent ...

, which maintain their own enterprise distributions. Likewise, Digia supports Linux by the development and LGPL licensing of Qt, which makes the development of

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

possible, and by employing some of the X and KDE developers.

Desktop environments

was the first advanced desktop environment (version 1.0 released in July 1998), but it was controversial due to the then-proprietary

Qt toolkit Qt (pronounced "cute") is cross-platform software for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems wit ...

used. Byfield B. (2007)
KDE vs. GNOME: Is One Better?
''

Datamation ''Datamation'' is a computer magazine that was published in print form in the United States between 1957 and 1998,

''.

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

was developed as an alternative due to licensing questions. The two use a different underlying toolkit and thus involve different programming, and are sponsored by two different groups, German nonprofit

KDE e.V. KDE e.V. is a registered non-profit organization that represents the KDE community in the legal and financial entities. The association supports KDE’s work in cash, hardware, and other donations, and then the use of donations to help the KDE dev ...

and the United States nonprofit

GNOME Foundation GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Orinda, California, United States, coordinating the efforts in the GNOME project. Purpose The GNOME Foundation works to further the goal of the GNOME project: to create a computing platfor ...

. As of April 2007, one journalist estimated that KDE had 65% of market share versus 26% for GNOME. In January 2008, KDE 4 was released prematurely with bugs, driving some users to GNOME.Byfield B. (2011)
Will GNOME 3.0 Repeat the User Revolt of KDE 4.0?
''Datamation''. GNOME 3, released in April 2011, was called an "unholy mess" by Linus Torvalds due to its controversial design changes. Dissatisfaction with GNOME 3 led to a fork,

Cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakfa ...

, which is developed primarily by

Linux Mint Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to i ...

developer Clement LeFebvre. This restores the more traditional desktop environment with marginal improvements. The relatively well-funded distribution,

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

, designed (and released in June 2011) another user interface called

Unity Unity may refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England * Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...

which is radically different from the conventional desktop environment and has been criticized as having various flaws and lacking configurability. The motivation was a single desktop environment for desktops and tablets, although as of November 2012 Unity has yet to be used widely in tablets. However, the smartphone and tablet version of Ubuntu and its Unity interface was unveiled by

Canonical Ltd Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...

in January 2013. In April 2017,

Canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical example ...

canceled the phone-based Ubuntu Touch project entirely in order to focus on IoT projects such as Ubuntu Core. In April 2017, Canonical dropped Unity and began to use

for the Ubuntu releases from 17.10 onward.

"Linux is obsolete"

In 1992, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, recognized computer scientist and author of the Minix microkernel system, wrote a Usenet article on the newsgroup comp.os.minix with the title "Linux is obsolete", which marked the beginning of a famous debate about the structure of the then-recent Linux kernel. Among the most significant criticisms were that: * The kernel was

monolithic A monolith is a monument or natural feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock. Monolith or monolithic may also refer to: Architecture * Monolithic architecture, a style of construction in which a building is carved, cast or excavated ...

and thus old-fashioned. * The lack of portability, due to the use of exclusive features of the Intel 386 processor. "Writing a new operating system that is closely tied to any particular piece of hardware, especially a weird one like the Intel line, is basically wrong." * There was no strict control of the source code by any individual person. * Linux employed a set of features which were useless (Tanenbaum believed that multithreaded

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

s were simply a "performance hack").Andrew Tanenbaum, Linus Torvalds and others:
Linux is obsolete
' Usenet post, 29 January 1992 Tanenbaum's prediction that Linux would become outdated within a few years and replaced by GNU Hurd (which he considered to be more modern) proved incorrect. Linux has been ported to all major platforms and its open development model has led to an exemplary pace of development. In contrast, GNU Hurd has not yet reached the level of stability that would allow it to be used on a production server.

' His dismissal of the Intel line of 386 processors as 'weird' has also proven short-sighted, as the x86 series of processors and the Intel Corporation would later become near ubiquitous in

personal computers A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...

and servers. In his unpublished book ''

Samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

'', Kenneth Brown claims that Torvalds illegally copied code from MINIX. In May 2004, these claims were refuted by Tanenbaum, the author of MINIX: The book's claims, methodology and references were seriously questioned and in the end it was never released and was delisted from the distributor's site.

Microsoft competition and collaboration

Although Torvalds has said that Microsoft's feeling threatened by Linux in the past was of no consequence to him, the Microsoft and Linux camps had a number of antagonistic interactions between 1997 and 2001. This became quite clear for the first time in 1998, when the first Halloween document was brought to light by

Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...

. This was a short essay by a Microsoft developer that sought to lay out the threats posed to Microsoft by free software and identified strategies to counter these perceived threats. Competition entered a new phase in the beginning of 2004, when

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

published results from customer case studies evaluating the use of Windows vs. Linux under the name “Get the Facts” on its own web page. Based on inquiries, research analysts, and some Microsoft sponsored investigations, the case studies claimed that enterprise use of Linux on servers compared unfavorably to the use of Windows in terms of reliability, security, and

total cost of ownership Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a financial estimate intended to help buyers and owners determine the direct and indirect costs of a product or service. It is a management accounting concept that can be used in full cost accounting or even ecolog ...

. In response, commercial Linux distributors produced their own studies, surveys and testimonials to counter Microsoft's campaign.

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...

's web-based campaign at the end of 2004 was entitled “Unbending the truth” and sought to outline the advantages as well as dispelling the widely publicized legal liabilities of Linux deployment (particularly in light of the ''SCO v IBM'' case). Novell particularly referenced the Microsoft studies in many points. IBM also published a series of studies under the title “The Linux at IBM competitive advantage” to again parry Microsoft's campaign. Red Hat had a campaign called “Truth Happens” aimed at letting the performance of the product speak for itself, rather than advertising the product by studies. In the autumn of 2006, Novell and Microsoft announced an agreement to co-operate on software interoperability and patent protection. This included an agreement that customers of either Novell or Microsoft may not be sued by the other company for patent infringement. This patent protection was also expanded to non-commercial free software developers. The last part was criticized because it only included non-commercial free software developers. In July 2009, Microsoft submitted 22,000 lines of source code to the Linux kernel under the GPLV2 license, which were subsequently accepted. Although this has been referred to as "a historic move" and as a possible bellwether of an improvement in Microsoft's corporate attitudes toward Linux and open-source software, the decision was not altogether altruistic, as it promised to lead to significant competitive advantages for Microsoft and avoided legal action against Microsoft. Microsoft was actually compelled to make the code contribution when

Vyatta Vyatta is a software-based virtual router, virtual firewall and VPN products for Internet Protocol networks (IPv4 and IPv6). A free download of Vyatta has been available since March 2006. The system is a specialized Debian-based Linux distribut ...

principal engineer and Linux contributor Stephen Hemminger discovered that Microsoft had incorporated a Hyper-V network driver, with GPL-licensed open source components, statically linked to closed-source binaries in contravention of the GPL licence. Microsoft contributed the drivers to rectify the licence violation, although the company attempted to portray it as a charitable act, rather than one to avoid legal action against it. In the past Microsoft had termed Linux a "cancer" and "communist". By 2011, Microsoft had become the 17th largest contributor to the Linux kernel. As of February 2015, Microsoft was no longer among the top 30 contributing sponsor companies. The

Windows Azure Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...

project was announced in 2008 and renamed to

Microsoft Azure Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...

. It incorporates

as part of its suite of server-based software applications. In August 2018,

created a

specifically tailored to the

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

applications under the Microsoft Azure project umbrella. Speaking about the kernel port, a Microsoft representative said "The new Azure-tuned kernel allows those customers to quickly take advantage of new Azure services such as Accelerated Networking with SR-IOV." In recent years, Torvalds has expressed a neutral to friendly attitude towards Microsoft following the company's new embrace of open source software and collaboration with the Linux community. "The whole anti-Microsoft thing was sometimes funny as a joke, but not really." said Torvalds in an interview with ZDNet. "Today, they're actually much friendlier. I talk to Microsoft engineers at various conferences, and I feel like, yes, they have changed, and the engineers are happy. And they're like really happy working on Linux. So I completely dismissed all the anti-Microsoft stuff."

SCO

In March 2003, the

SCO Group The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the o ...

accused IBM of violating their copyright on UNIX by transferring code from UNIX to Linux. SCO claims ownership of the copyrights on UNIX and a lawsuit was filed against IBM. Red Hat has counter-sued and SCO has since filed other related lawsuits. At the same time as their lawsuit, SCO began selling Linux licenses to users who did not want to risk a possible complaint on the part of SCO. Since

also claimed the copyrights to UNIX, it filed suit against SCO. In early 2007, SCO filed the specific details of a purported copyright infringement. Despite previous claims that SCO was the rightful copyright holder of 1 million lines of code, they specified only 326 lines of code, most of which were uncopyrightable. In August 2007, the court in the Novell case ruled that SCO did not actually hold the Unix copyrights, to begin with, though the

Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (in case citations, 10th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Colorado * District of Kansas * Distric ...

ruled in August 2009 that the question of who held the copyright properly remained for a jury to answer. The jury case was decided on 30 March 2010 in Novell's favour. SCO has since filed for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

Trademark rights

In 1994 and 1995, several people from different countries attempted to register the name "Linux" as a trademark. Thereupon requests for royalty payments were issued to several Linux companies, a step with which many developers and users of Linux did not agree. Linus Torvalds clamped down on these companies with help from Linux International and was granted the trademark to the name, which he transferred to Linux International. Protection of the trademark was later administered by a dedicated foundation, the non-profit

Linux Mark Institute The Linux Mark Institute (LMI, fully "LMI Oregon, LLC") is an organization which administers the "''Linux''" trademark on behalf of Linus Torvalds for computer software which includes the Linux kernel, computer hardware utilizing Linux-based sof ...

. In 2000, Linus Torvalds specified the basic rules for the assignment of the licenses. This means that anyone who offers a product or a service with the name ''Linux'' must possess a license for it, which can be obtained through a unique purchase. In June 2005, a new controversy developed over the use of royalties generated from the use of the Linux trademark. The Linux Mark Institute, which represents Linus Torvalds' rights, announced a price increase from 500 to 5,000 dollars for the use of the name. This step was justified as being needed to cover the rising costs of trademark protection. In response to this increase, the community became displeased, which is why Linus Torvalds made an announcement on 21 August 2005, in order to dissolve the misunderstandings. In an e-mail he described the current situation as well as the background in detail and also dealt with the question of who had to pay license costs: The Linux Mark Institute has since begun to offer a free, perpetual worldwide sublicense.

Chronology

* 1991: The Linux kernel is publicly announced on 25 August by the 21-year-old Finnish student Linus Benedict Torvalds. Version 0.01 is released publicly on 17 September. * 1992: The Linux kernel is relicensed under the GNU GPL. The first

Linux distributions A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

are created. * 1993: Over 100 developers work on the Linux kernel. With their assistance the kernel is adapted to the GNU environment, which creates a large spectrum of application types for Linux. The oldest currently existing Linux distribution,

Slackware Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System, Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distributions ...

, is released for the first time. Later in the same year, the

project is established. Today it is the largest community distribution. * 1994: Torvalds judges all components of the kernel to be fully matured: he releases version 1.0 of Linux. The

XFree86 XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and was available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the X ...

project contributes a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

(GUI). Commercial Linux distribution makers

and

publish version 1.0 of their Linux distributions. * 1995: Linux is ported to the

DEC Alpha Alpha (original name Alpha AXP) is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Alpha was designed to replace 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computers ...

and to the Sun SPARC. Over the following years it is ported to an ever-greater number of platforms. * 1996: Version 2.0 of the Linux kernel is released. The kernel can now serve several processors at the same time using

symmetric multiprocessing Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all ...

(SMP), and thereby becomes a serious alternative for many companies. * 1998: Many major companies such as IBM,

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

and

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

announce their support for Linux.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary'' (abbreviated ''CatB'') is an essay, and later a book, by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux k ...

is first published as an essay (later as a book), resulting in

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

publicly releasing the source code to its

Netscape Communicator Netscape Communicator (or ''Netscape 4'') is a discontinued Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the fourth major release in the Netscape line of browsers. It was first in beta in 1996 and was released in June 1 ...

web browser suite. Netscape's actions and crediting of the essay brings Linux's open source development model to the attention of the popular technical press. In addition a group of programmers begins developing the graphical user interface

. Linux first appears on the

Top500 The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non-distributed computing, distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these ...

list of fastest supercomputers.Linux totally dominates supercomputers
ZDNet. 2017.The

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...

port (initiated in 1994) is merged. * 1999: A group of developers begin work on the graphical environment

, destined to become a free replacement for KDE, which at the time, depended on the then proprietary

. During the year IBM announces an extensive project for the support of Linux. Version 2.2 of the Linux kernel is released. * 2000: Dell announces that it is now the No. 2 provider of Linux-based systems worldwide and the first major manufacturer to offer Linux across its full product line. * 2001: Version 2.4 of the Linux kernel is released. * 2002: The media reports that "Microsoft killed Dell Linux" * 2003: Version 2.6 of the Linux kernel is released. * 2004: The XFree86 team splits up and joins with the existing X standards body to form the

X.Org Foundation The X.Org Foundation is a non-profit corporation chartered to research, develop, support, organize, administrate, standardize, promote, and defend a free and open accelerated graphics stack. This includes, but is not limited to, the following p ...

, which results in a substantially faster development of the X server for Linux. * 2005: The project

begins a free distribution from Novell's community. Also the project

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...

introduces version 2.0 that then started supporting

OASIS In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

OpenDocument The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...

standards. * 2006: Oracle releases its own distribution of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Novell and

announce cooperation for a better interoperability and mutual patent protection. * 2007: Dell starts distributing laptops with

pre-installed on them. * 2009: Red Hat's

market capitalization Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by t ...

equals Sun's, interpreted as a symbolic moment for the "Linux-based economy". * 2011: Version 3.0 of the Linux kernel is released. * 2012: The aggregate Linux server market revenue exceeds that of the rest of the Unix market. * 2013: Google's Linux-based Android claims 75% of the

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

market share, in terms of the number of phones shipped. * 2014: Ubuntu claims 22,000,000 users. * 2015: Version 4.0 of the Linux kernel is released. * 2017: All of

list of fastest supercomputers run Linux. * 2019: Version 5.0 of the Linux kernel is released. * 2022: Version 6.0 of the Linux kernel is released.

References

External links

LINUX's History by Linus Torvalds

History of Linux by Ragib Hasan

Changes done in each Linux kernel release (since version 2.5.1)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Linux Linux *

Linus Torvalds