An ethical operating system, a highly
motivated missionary: Linux may not only improve the PC, but would rather the
complete world
The operators of the project space watch at
the university of Arizona are specialised in tracking down comets and small
planets. On 12th October 1994, they discovered a new planetoid and gave it the
name (9885) Linux. Before that, in March 199, they named a planetoid (9965) GNU
and in September 1994, sent code activist Richard Stallman to the starry sky as
(9882) Stallman. Finally, on 16th January 1996, even Linux founder Linus
Torvalds followed the stars up towards heavens. The honors convey the importance
these software projects and its creators have today, and the admiration they
each own.
The
Operating System: Linux
To understand what Linux does so
extraordinarily, we must go to the past. At beginning of the nineties, at the
time when the four planetoids were named, a cosmic event of the digital nature
also took place - the big bang of the Internet in the public. The preparations
for this have lasted for a quarter of the year. In the year 1969, three events
took place simultaneously: In USA, the first two mainframes were connected online
with each other and formed the primordial cell of the Internet. Moreover, in
the legendary Bell laboratories of AT&T, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie
started with the development of an operating system called Linux. And, in
Helsinki, Linus Torvalds was born.
An operating system as world outlook
AT&T was not allowed to advance in the
new scope of business just like the software industry as a government
controlled telephone monopolist. Thus, Unix was circulated as free of cost and
was popular as an operating system that is free and portable. It fitted
perfectly in the world of universities and research facilities where scientist
used it to try new findings regarding life, the universe and the rest freely
and openly. That an operating system can be not only an algorithm but a
complete world outlook was clear at the end of 1979 with the release of Unix.
AT&T started to market the program package - including several extensions
that have been added by idealistically motivated programmers. The community was
not delighted.
Linux
and The GNU Project
At the same time, a communication platform
that was again free and open, emerged - the Unix User Network, briefly called
Usenet. It was thought as an alternative to the strictly regulated Arpanet, the
prequel of today's Internet. At the start of the eighties, Richard Stallman was
a voice in the digital wilderness. With the intention of creating an operating
system like Unix, but one that has a clean heart-thus free and on the other
hand commercial aims and restrictions - he created the GNU project (GNU stands
for "GNUs Not Unix”), formed the Free Software Foundation and with GNU
General Public License (GPL) and prepared a legal proof for circulating free
software that is still used even today in a refined version. The ideas were
appreciated. However, GNU missed the important this for a complete operating
system: a kernel.
In the spring of 1991, Linus Torvalds
completed the plan. The 21 year old computer science student had familiarised
himself with a Unix version called Minix and thus tested to design the code
efficiently. Sometime, Torvalds noticed that he had started to write an
operating system. On 26th August, he mentioned in a historical Usenet posting,
it is "only a hobby, shall not be big and professional like GNU” - an
assessment with which he went off the mark.
Linus
Torvalds
The development of Linux was the first
successful example for worldwide and independent teamwork in Internet era.
For few areas of such a large project,
there is "Maintainer" Torvalds is one of them - more information
about the hierarchy is not necessary. The people work at eye level with each
other. And Linux was for an awakening movement. An operating system that
understands itself not only as functional basis for computer hardware but also
as an expression of an intellectual and moral renovation. Linux is a cost of
living that has to do with public spirit, transparency and freedom - in sense
of personal responsibility - including the efforts that bring such attempts
along with it.
What Linus Torvalds developed in the
beginning of the nineties was only the Linux kernel. This was used over the
years for different distributions - software packages like Red Hat, Debian or
openSuse. These were again divided in almost innumerable derivatives. The Linux
distribution timeline (futurist.se/ gldt/) lists more than 140 derivatives
alone for the distribution Debian.
