[lug] Did Linus really not write Linux?

[Ferdinand Schmid]

--On Saturday, May 22, 2004 03:18:12 PM -0600 Timothy Klein
<teece at silverklein.net> wrote:
<snip>
> Agenda Filter:  Isn't Andy Tannenbaum the author of Minix (the first 
> competetion to Linux), and the same guy that had the lengthy Usenet 
> discussion with Torvalds in the early Nineties about how the Linux kernel was 
> brain-dead, had no future, would never be ported to anything other than its 
> original i386, and would never amount to anything, in general?

He's the guy - but he wrote Minix before Linus wrote Linux.  In fact Linux ran
Minix as his development platform when he wrote Linux - based on AT's
article.  Generally I do have to say that some Unix folks think they are much
better than the general public.  It has been that way as long as I can
remember (my personal experience starts in the early to mid 80ies).  

As a scientist I do have to say that Linus should have given proper credit to
prior art.  AT is correct about that.  Linus did what AT had done before - he
implemented Unix himself to avoid dealing with the greedy Unix companies.
Microsoft wouldn't have been able to get off the ground if Unix would have
been an affordable PC OS.  Now they are raising the price for their product
above the pain level for many folks so Linux had a good chance to grow.  Of
course there are also technical merits - but money talks louder than sysadmins
;)  

Just my opinion,

Ferdinand

--
Ferdinand Schmid
Architectural Energy Corporation
Celebrating over 20 Years of Improving Building Energy Performance
http://www.archenergy.com