jueves, 25 de agosto de 2011

20 años de "Hello everybody out there using minix"

Hace hoy exactamente 20 años, un joven estudiante de informática finlandés llamado Linus Torvalds publicaba en usenet:


Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).
I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes – it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.
—Linus Torvalds [11


Si, era la primera noticia de que algo parecido a Unix, gratuito, se estaba cocinando.




Es dificil calcular como sería el panorama tecnológico actual de no haber sido por Linux. Desde los mayores superordenadores al sistema operativo para móviles con mayor numero de activaciones al dia (mas de 500.000), Android, una enorme parte de la tecnologia actual esta basada en el sistema operativo del pingüino. Los mayores centros de datos del mundo (google, facebook, amazon) están basados en Linux. Una revolución dificilmente imaginable hace 20 años.


♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫..... y que cuuuumplas muuuchos maaaas ! ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪♪