Bill Gates paid $25,000 to an associate for what would become MSDOS. He then sold this to IBM for millions. It was through crafty business maneuvers like this that windows wold eventually become the #1 used operating system in the world. There were other options that could have been developed instead. But Bill was quick to dominate the personal computer market, leaving everyone to suffer through inferior software.
Linus Torvalds began working on a free to use Unix clone to run on his 386 since the licensing fees were for Unix were in the tens of thousands. Though only intended as a hobby and only planned to run on a single architecture, it has become the largest collaborative software project in the history of computing. While most were accepting the blue screen of death as a fact of life. Linux was quietly growing, becoming the backbone of the internet. And it’s still quiet, scaffolding the backend of the internet. You’ve never heard of it but you probably use it. If you use Android, Google, YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Ebaby, etc etc etc… then you interact with Linux.
I include here Linus’ first usenet post announcing the project:
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
created: 12/1/2024
modified: 12/9/2024
