20 anni e non sentirli: marzo 1994, Linus Torvalds presenta il primo kernel 1.0.0

Anche se l’anniversario della nascita di Linux risale al 1991, il primo rilascio di un Kernel 1.0 risale a Marzo 1994.

Linux, il sistema operativo open source che ha saputo ritagliarsi una fetta notevole del settore server e che, sebbene con numeri ancora piccoli, tenta di aggredire il settore client.
In particolare, una buona fetta, prossima al 50%, dei server web, utilizza una qualche distribuzione di Linux ed una combinazione del web server Apache con MySQL o di NGINX.
Alcuni dati particolarmente interessanti sono disponibili su Netcraft mentre un recente studio ha mostrato quanto bisogno ci sia nel mondo per Sysadmin e sviluppatori Linux-skilled.

Quanto è cambiato Linux da allora?
Il Kernel Linux 1.0.0 venne rilasciato con 176.250 linee di codice che vennero raddoppiate in un solo anno con il rilascio della versione 1.2.0 (310 950 linee di codice) fino ad arrivare a circa 17 milioni di righe di codice presenti nelle ultime versioni.

La storia di Linux viene riassunta in questo divertente video:

The Story of Linux: Commemorating 20 Years from Linux Foundation on Vimeo.

Questo il messaggio originale con il quale Linus presenta al mondo il primo kernel definitivo come “A better Unix than Windows NT”.

From: Linus Torvalds
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Linux 1.0—A better UNIX than Windows NT
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Date: 14 Mar 1994 12:51:16 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 138
Approved: [email protected] (Lars Wirzenius)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hydra.helsinki.fi
Summary: Linux 1.0 released
Keywords: Linux Kernel 1.0 Academy Awards
X-Moderator-Added-Keywords: universe, end of

Finally, here it is. Almost on time (being just two years late is
peanuts in the OS industry), and better than ever:

Linux kernel release 1.0

This release has no new major features compared to the pl15 kernels, but
contains lots and lots of bugfixes: all the major ones are gone, the
smaller ones are hidden better. Hopefully there are no major new ones.

The Linux kernel can be found as source on most of the Linux ftp-sites
under the names

linux-1.0.tar.gz (full source)
linux-1.0.patch.pl15.gz (patch against linux-0.99pl15)
linux-1.0.patch.alpha.gz (patch from linux-pre-1.0)

it should be available at least at the sites

ftp.funet.fi:
pub/OS/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus (now)
sunsite.unc.ed:
pub/Linux/Incoming (now)
pub/Linux/kernel (soon)
tsx-11.mit.edu:
pub/linux/sources/system (soon)
ftp.cs.helsinki.fi:
pub/Software/Linux/Kernel (now)

This release finally moves Linux out of Beta status and is meant as a
base for distributions to build on. It will neither change Linux’
status as FreeWare under the GPL, nor will it mean the end of
development on Linux. In fact many new features where held back for
later releases so that 1.0 could become a well tested and hopefully
stable release.

The Linux kernel wouldn’t be where it is today without the help of lots
of people: the kernel developers, the people who did user-level programs
making linux useful, and the brave and foolhardy people who risked their
harddisks and sanity to test it all out. My thanks to you all.
(Editorial note: if you think this sounds too much like the Academy
Awards ceremony, just skip this: it’s not getting any better.)

Thanks to people like Aaron Kushner, Danny ter Haar and the authors of
the AnwenderHandbuch (and others) who have helped me with hardware or
monetary donations (and to the Oxford Beer Trolls and others who took
care of the drinkware). And thanks to Dirk, who helped me write this
announcement despite my lazyness (“hey, it’s just another release, who
needs an announcement anyway?”).

To make a long and boring story a bit shorter and boring, here is at
least a partial list of people who have been helping make Linux what it
is today. Thanks to you all,

Krishna Balasubramanian
Arindam Banerji
Peter Bauer <[email protected]>
Fred Baumgarten
Donald Becker
Stephen R. van den Berg
Hennus Bergman
Ross Biro
Bill Bogstad
John Boyd
Andries Brouwer
Remy Card
Ed Carp
Raymond Chen
Alan Cox
Laurence Culhane
Wayne Davison
Thomas Dunbar Torsten Duwe
Drew Eckhardt
Bjorn Ekwall
Doug Evans
Rik Faith
Juergen Fischer
Jeremy Fitzhardinge
Ralf Flaxa
Nigel Gamble
Philip Gladstone Bruno Haible
Andrew Haylett
Dirk Hohndel
Nick Holloway
Ron Holt
Rob W. W. Hooft
Michael K. Johnson
Fred N. van Kempen
Olaf Kirch
Ian Kluft
Rudolf Koenig
Bas Laarhoven
Warner Losh
H.J. Lu
Tuomas J. Lukka
Kai M”akisara
Pat Mackinlay John A. Martin
Bradley McLean
Craig Metz
William (Bill) Metzenthen
Rick Miller
Corey Minyard
Eberhard Moenkeberg
Ian A. Murdock
Johan Myreen
Stefan Probst
Daniel Quinlan
Florian La Roche
Robert Sanders
Peter De Schrijver
Darren Senn
Chris Smith
Drew Sullivan
Tommy Thorn
Jon Tombs
Theodore Ts’o
Simmule Turner
Stephen Tweedie
Thomas Uhl
Juergen Weigert
Matt Welsh
Marco van Wieringen
Stephen D. Williams
G\”unter Windau
Lars Wirzenius
Roger E. Wolff
Frank Xia
Eric Youngdale
Orest Zborowski

A more detailed list with contact and description information can be
found in the CREDITS file that accompanies the kernel sources.

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