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Linux Turns 17 Today

Posted by kdawson on Sun Oct 05, 2008 08:54 PM
from the hippo-birdies dept.
Linux
Meshach writes "Over at the Linux Journal, Doc Searles is noting that today marks 17 years since Linus posted to Usenet, starting Linux (post). As a Linux user at work and at home I say, thanks Linus!" The anniversary is also featured on the top page of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
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  • Age of Consent (Score:5, Funny)

    by BaldGhoti (265981) on Sunday October 05, @08:55PM (#25268933) Homepage
    One more year and it should be legal.

  • Made for hackers (Score:5, Funny)

    by narcberry (1328009) on Sunday October 05, @09:00PM (#25268955)

    It is currently meant for hackers

    OMG SHUT IT DOWN!!!

      • Re:Made for hackers (Score:5, Informative)

        by Mick R (932337) on Sunday October 05, @09:18PM (#25269051)
        Don't mistake the word "hacker" for what the ill-informed media use it to mean. It is the popular media that have given the term a negative meaning, and then only in recent years. It WAS a positive term, and STILL IS to those who know what it really means.

        • Re:Made for hackers (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Gewalt (1200451) on Sunday October 05, @09:29PM (#25269131)

          And it was a negative term "to hack" long before a small group of programmers started misusing it. Because the general populous perceived the word akin it's etymology, to the public the word could only be used to describe something malign.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Not only that, but it was a negative term before, too.

            A "hack" is an ugly thrown-together bit of code that is used because "it works" rather than coming up with a proper solution. A "hacker" is someone who largely produces this low quality, but mostly functional code.

            I usually stay quiet when all these people insist that they are "hackers" since, by and large, I agree with them (based on the above definition).

            And, this goes right along with the "It is currently meant for hackers", because at the beginning

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by SgtPepperKSU (905229)

              Of course, the "just works" in the fourth paragraph should be another "it works". I feel I should make that clear since the term "just works" has been taken over, too.

              I see you are still on my lawn...

      • This is partially related to Linux's slow adoption rate, the "Hacker" stereotype presented in movies and such. If "Hacker" was portrayed accurately as similar to say "Skilled Mechanic", would Linux have more adoption? A Hacker being the one who helps get more from the hardware/software like a skilled mechanic getting you 5 MPG more than stock, and a cracker (not mentioned due to USA racial concerns?) being the one who takes your car on joy rides and brings it back beat up.

        I think that the true hackers ne

  • what (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikesd81 (518581) <[mikesd] [at] [ptd.net]> on Sunday October 05, @09:06PM (#25268983) Homepage
    No google logo for this?! I expected a penguin or something like that.

  • My Linux has a fake ID (Score:5, Funny)

    by LM741N (258038) on Sunday October 05, @09:20PM (#25269065)

    Its called Ubuntu and he is supposed to be 60 years old and lives as a zoo keeper, naming all of his projects after various animals there.

  • Britannica? (Score:3, Funny)

    by paradoxSpirit (1172919) on Sunday October 05, @09:28PM (#25269125)

    "The anniversary is also featured on the top page of the Encyclopedia Britannica"

    Britannica is overrated, wake me when it make the first page of wikipedia ;-)

  • this just in (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nyall (646782) on Sunday October 05, @09:47PM (#25269223) Homepage

    Time keeps flowing.

  • "Barely Legal"

  • 17 years... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rampant mac (561036) on Sunday October 05, @10:17PM (#25269403)

    Obligatory:

    1991 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1992 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1993 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1994 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1995 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1996 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1997 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1998 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 1999 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2000 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2001 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2002 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2003 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2004 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2005 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2006 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2007 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!, 2008 - This is the year of the Linux desktop!

    Stupid whitespace filter, yadda yadda

      • Re:17 years... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, @11:26PM (#25269791)

        I'll never forget the day I was at a large meeting with my clients. They never took me seriously and in fact started leaving the room. Turns out it was because my dick was hanging out of my pants. Never again will I use velcro. From that day forward, it was zipper only!

  • I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be
    out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got
    minix.

    This brings tears to my eyes...
    I didn't know, that Hurd was already in development back than...
    And 17 years later... it's still not done...
    Even the Firefox spell checker does not know it... It recommends "Turd". *lol*
    Hey, it does not know "Firefox" too. Oh well...

    Think of what happened if Linus had waited* for Hurd instead...

    [* Is that correct English? It's not my first language... I don't know...)

  • And what a handsome teen it is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PinkyDead (862370) on Monday October 06, @04:26AM (#25270955) Journal

    ...coz, lord knows, it was an ugly baby.

    • Re:Poor Quality (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mikesd81 (518581) <[mikesd] [at] [ptd.net]> on Sunday October 05, @09:21PM (#25269071) Homepage
      I don't think it was meant to be a history lesson. If you're looking at the fact linux is 17 today, then you know what linux is. I kinda think, and this isn't one of Doc's better articles, it's saying where Linux is now at the moment and where it may go?

      • Re:Poor Quality (Score:4, Interesting)

        by bmo (77928) on Sunday October 05, @11:05PM (#25269687)

        I'm commenting on the Britannica article that I clicked through to. It wasn't written by Doc. It's written by some guy called Anthony Craine, who I have never heard of.

        Britannica is supposed to be "high quality" (because it was when I was a wee tyke when it was only available in dead-tree edition).

        I guess I should have been more clear.

        --
        BMO

    • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mcrbids (148650) on Sunday October 05, @10:44PM (#25269575) Journal

      Mod down? No. But there's an important distinction: to get technical excellence, you have to have some way to filter out technical mediocrity. Therefore, in an environment demanding technical excellence, those who are technically mediocre will feel slighted and rejected.

      Building excellence is not about "feeling good", a bunch of hairy hippies sitting around in Buddha style kumbaya. It's about building excellence, and it's not always pretty.

      Linus is very forward and very direct; a display of the confidence that comes from years of proven experience producing and overseeing real, valuable excellence. He's OK with stating his opinion very openly and succinctly, confident that if his ideas are wrong, they'll be picked apart ruthlessly and publicly.

      Linus has done an amazing job of coordinating an insane amount of information in one of the largest, most complex, and most distributed project ever attempted by mankind. And he accepts that his ideas are only valuable if they are RIGHT by the standards of excellence.

      I don't care if he is "polite", he is an amazing fellow simply because he's OK with being wrong, and puts his ego in 2nd place after technical excellence!

      This is the hallmark of good science and good engineering: when who has the right answer is less important than what's the right answer!

      Hugs to Linus!

      • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by zkiwi34 (974563) on Sunday October 05, @09:50PM (#25269249)
        I'd say he (Linus) is far far more humble than Gates, Ballmer, Ellison et al. In fact, I should add that I rather think RMS is shy and retiring compared to those guys.

      • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by saleenS281 (859657) on Sunday October 05, @09:52PM (#25269257) Homepage
        Ya frigging Stallman. While he may be a bit off his rocker... he only created the license Linux currently uses, as well as the compiler it was created with. Other than that, a COMPLETE hackjob.

        Or did you conveniently forget that it's GNU/Linux? Without Stallman you likely wouldn't have Linux at all.

        • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by bsDaemon (87307) on Sunday October 05, @10:02PM (#25269307)

          No, but you could still have Free/Net/Open BSD, though. So what, really, would be the loss?

          Of course, gcc is really the engine that makes all our worlds revolve these days.

          • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Cathbard (954906) on Monday October 06, @01:33AM (#25270319)
            I think you are underestimating the influence of the GPL in the success of GNU/Linux. Knowing that some slimy corporation wasn't able to take your contribution, close it off and sell it made the whole deal far more palatable. There's no way I would contribute without the protections offered by the GPL license and I know I'm not alone in having that attitude. The only thing worse than working for a corporation is working for them for free.

          • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by orzetto (545509) on Monday October 06, @03:33AM (#25270757)

            No, but you could still have Free/Net/Open BSD, though. So what, really, would be the loss?

            A lot of Linux development is done by companies such as IBM and many others. They contribute back only because the GPL says it's the only way to play. Had it been BSD, they would rather keep their drivers (as they do in Windows), and distribute them with their hardware—it would be a binary blob nightmare. There are indeed binary blobs for Linux, but are more the exception than the rule.

            Without the GPL, engineers cannot justify giving back code done on company time in front of their employers. Sure, BSD would be there, but would be nowhere as successful as Linux.

            A lot of BSD developers are nice people, willing to give their work for nothing in return (no irony nor paternalism intended here; it's a good character trait); however, there are far more cheapskates around than white knights in shining armour.

        • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, @10:10PM (#25269355)

          Or did you conveniently forget that it's GNU/Linux?

          Ahem, did *you* conveniently forget that it's [Mozilla|Konqueror]/OpenOffice.org/KDE/QT/[X.org|XFree86]/GNU/Linux?

        • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by BobNET (119675) on Sunday October 05, @11:29PM (#25269813)

          Or did you conveniently forget that it's GNU/Linux?

          Like how people conveniently forget that it wasn't published under the GPL until late 1992. Or that it can currently be compiled with at least one compiler other than GCC. Or that it's possible to run it with a modified *BSD userland and non-glibc C library. But yeah, aside from that, it's all Stallman's doing...

        • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Macthorpe (960048) <macthorpe AT gmail DOT com> on Monday October 06, @12:10AM (#25269975) Journal

          1) Writing a license doesn't require you to be a good coder.

          2) The original GCC was so poor that they eventually gave up on it and instead used EGCS, which was a much better fork of the same software which they then merged back in to GCC. I will go on to quote another Slashdot user who had the misfortune of working on some of his code:

          I know from personal experience that he is a control freak. All "official sanctioned" GNU code is owned by him, by copyright assignment. It is not enough for software to be under the GPL. My only direct experience was a phone call right after I had taken over the job of Mr. XEmacs and he told me how he must "wage war" (direct quote) against me and XEmacs because even though we were true blue GPL, he must have FSF copyright assignment.

          The Emacs source code which we inherited and forked is littered with 1000+ line functions, 6+ levels of nested if-else and assorted other crap that looks like it was being written to violate as many rules of good programming style as possible. The amount of time it took to get the code in a state where we could display CJK fonts in Emacs (and in a stable state) was staggering, especially considering that we were basing our work off the good folks' at ETL Mule.

          I have no respect for the man, no respect for his (programming) work. I find the names Linux/GNU and worse GNU/Linux to be as childish and offensive as the children who like to write Micro$oft and M$ and similar crap. (You might as well also write "you can't spell gOatse without the Gates and a big O". It's equally as witty.) Anyone can develop userland tools. Only a handful of people, of which Richard is NOT one, can develop a successful kernel.

          So, my point stands - Linus is a good coder. Stallman is not.

          • Re:Linus... humble!? (Score:5, Informative)

            by SL Baur (19540) <steve@xemacs.org> on Monday October 06, @04:16AM (#25270911) Homepage Journal

            2) The original GCC was so poor that they eventually gave up on it and instead used EGCS, which was a much better fork of the same software which they then merged back in to GCC.

            Sorry, but this is the wrong argument. EGCS broke away because Richard Kenner was a crappy GCC maintainer. It was also driven in the fact that "official" GCC could not successfully compile the Linux kernel at the time. HJ Lu made forks of libc and gcc in order to support building Linux systems.

            The HJ Lu gcc fork was separate from EGCS and ended when EGCS was established.

            Otherwise, OK and that random slashdotter you quoted was me.

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