La nascita
Il kernel di Linux è stato originariamente sviluppato da Linus Torvalds. Il progetto iniziale era ispirato a Minix, un piccola
versione di UNIX sviluppata da Andy Tanenbaum, e proprio nel gruppo di discussione comp.os.minix venne rilasciato il seguente messaggio
da Torvalds:
"After that it was plain sailing: hairy coding still, but I had some devices, and debugging was easier. I started using C
at this stage, and it certainly speeds up developement. This is also when I start to get serious about my megalomaniac ideas to make
'a better Minix than Minix'. I was hoping I'd be able to recompile gcc under Linux some day... Two months for basic setup, but then
only slightly longer until I had a disk-driver (seriously buggy, but it happened to work on my machine) and a small filesystem. That
was about when I made 0.01 avaible [around late August of 1991]: it wasn't pretty, it had no floppy driver, and it couldn't do much
anything. I don't think anybody ever compiled that version. But by then I was hooked, and didn't want to stop until I could chuck
out Minix."
Nessun annuncio venne fatto per la versione 0.01. Le sorgenti di quest'ultimo non erano eseguibili e contenevano unicamente le rudimentali
sorgenti del kernel da compilare su un server Minix. Nell'ottobre 1991 venne annunciata la versione 0.02 di Linux, la prima versione
ad essere definita "ufficiale": Quest'ultima rimaneva pur sempre scarna ma includeva la shell dei comandi bash (GNU Bourne
Again Shell) e gcc, il compilatore GNU. Era il primo ed importante passo ed un'intera comunità di sviluppatori abbracciò
il progetto.
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Figura 5.1:Linus Torvalds fotografato dopo un talk. |
Linus scrisse su comp.os.minix:
"Do you pine for the nice days of Minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers? Are you sure without a
nice project and just dying to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you finding it frustrating when everything
works on Minix? No more all-nighters to get a nifty program working? Then this post might be just for you. As i mentioned a month
ago, I'm working on a free version of a Minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage where it's even usable
(though may not be depending on what you want), and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution. It is just version
0.02... but I've successfully run bash, gcc, gnu-make, gnu-sed, compress, etc. under it."
Dopo la versione 0.03 ci fu un rapido susseguirsi di versioni grazie alla natura del progetto che concentrava l'opera di una crescente
comunità telematica. La versione 1.0 venne rilasciata nel dicembre del 1993 dopo essere considerata stabile e bug-free, ovvero
senza problemi. Il kernel di Linux rilasciato era compatibile con molti standard UNIX come IEEE POSIX.1, System V e BSD e poteva ``funzionare''
su processori di classe i386, disponibili in gran parte dei personal computer esistenti.
Le frasi "Linux is not Unix" o "GNU is not Unix" hanno un senso; il marchio UNIX è licenziato da X/Open
che su richiesta e a pagamento valuta un sistema operativo e definisce o meno l'utilizzo del nome "UNIX". Linux è il
paradosso perché malgrado la mancanza del "titolo" ha saputo imporsi ugualmente e diventare la linea guida nello sviluppo
software per sistemi UNIX, scavalcando per propria natura ogni limite relativo a licenze con particolari note restrittive.
Dopo circa 8 anni dal messaggio inizialmente riportato lo spirito di Torvalds non è affatto cambiato. Il 10 Marzo 2000 scriveva:
"I just made a 2.3.51 release, and the next kernel will be the first of the pre-2.4.x kernels. That does NOT mean that I'll
apply a lot of last-minute patches: it only means that I'll let 2.3.51 be out there over the weekend to hear about any embarrassing
problems so that we can start the pre-2.4 series without the truly stupid stuff. There's some NFSv3 and other stuff pending, but those
who have pending stuff should all know who they are, and for the rest it's just time to say nice try, see you in 2.5.x. The pre-2.4.x
series will probably go on for a while, but these are the bug fixes only trees. These are also the I hope a lot of people test them
trees, because without testing we'll never get to the eventual goal, which is a good and stable 2.4.x in the reasonably near future."
"I hope a lot of people test them", ovvero la versione "spero che molta gente lo testi" per riportare eventuali
mancanze o errori da correggere prima della versione finale. Ironia e modestia, le chiavi di successo. In un messaggio ironico spedito
il primo giorno di Aprile 2000, Torvalds scriveva:
"Dear Linux Users,
I'm pleased to announce jointly with Microsoft(tm)(r) Corporation release of Linux 2000 Professional Enterprise. As you probably already
know I'm busy with my family and I already have full-time job with Transmeta. Thus, it has been necessary for me to look for some
responsible partner who would help me develop Linux. After extensive search, I have decided upon Microsoft Corporation which has been
known on market for long time from their high quality software. Thus the upcoming Linux 2.4.0 will become Linux 2000(tm)(r). Pricing
will be determined at later time. However, I would like to take opportunity now to remind people who have unlicensed version of Linux
to delete it from hard disk and then wait until official release of Linux 2000(tm)(r) will become available. Effective April 1st 2000,
midnight, all older versions of Linux are illegal under Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
Un bel "pesce d'aprile"! :)
L'annuncio della versione 2.4.0.test10-final fatto da Torvalds presentava quanto segue:
From: Linus Torvalds
Subject: Linux-2.4.0-test10
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 12:41:55 -0800 (PST)
Ok, test10-final is out there now. This has no _known_ bugs that I consider show-stoppers, for what it's worth.
And when I don't know of a bug, it doesn't exist. Let us rejoice. In traditional kernel naming tradition, this kernel hereby
gets anointed as one of the "greased weasel" kernel series, one of the final steps in a stable release.
We're still waiting for the Vatican to officially canonize this kernel, but trust me, that's only a matter of time. It's a little
known fact, but the Pope likes penguins too.
Linus
Effetto "giubileo".
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