[lug] Did Linus really not write Linux?

[Michael D. Hirsch]

On Sat, 2004-05-22 at 17:18, Timothy Klein wrote:
> On Saturday 22 May 2004 03:00 pm, Ferdinand Schmid wrote:
> > HI,
> >
> > I don't know how many of you have followed the latest M$ funded FUD
> > campaign...  A so-called "Thinktank" claims that Linus didn't write Linux.
> > The link below contains interesting information about the topic and the
> > history of Unix in general, written by Andy Tanenbaum.
> >
> > http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/
> >
> 
> 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?
> 
> If it's the same guy, he's an ass that is too full of himself.  He drowns out 
> his good points out in know-it-all-ness.  He also was a wee bit wrong on his 
> early assessments of Linux, and the direction of OS design in general.

Everyone knows that Tannenbaum wrote Minix first, and Linux had studied
it.  That isn't a secret.  Be sure you read Tannenbaums articles about
being interviewed by the reports author.  He says the guy was incredibly
ignorant about Unix, and kept trying to get Tannenbaum to say that Linux
stole his sources.  Tannenbaum says in no uncertain terms that Linus did
not use any Minix Source, or anyone else's source.  He says that Linux
was written from scratch by Linus.

He still thinks that Linux would be better with a microkernel, but
otherwise speaks very highly of Linux and Linux.

Michael

Michael