Introduction to Free Software - SELF | Sharing Knowledge about ...

© FUOC • P07/M2101/02709 132 Free Software
Version 0.02, which dates from October 1991, despite being very limited,
could already execute bash terminals and the GCC compiler. Over the course
of the following months, the number of external contributions grew to the
point that in March 1992, Linus could publish version 0.95, which was widely
acknowledged as almost stable. There was still quite a way to go, however, be-
fore version 1.0, which is usually considered the first stable one: in December
1993, for example, version 0.99pl14 was published (which would make it the
fourteenth corrected version of version 0.99); in March 1994, Linux 1.0 was
finally born. By this time, Linux was being published under the terms of the
GPL license; according to Torvalds himself, this was one of the best decisions
he ever made, as it was extremely helpful in distributing and popularising his
kernel. In "Evolution in open source software: a case study", [128] there is an
exhaustive analysis of the evolution of the different versions of the Linux ker-
nel, focusing on the scale and modularity.
Note
Another significant event in the annals of free software was the debate that took place
in late January 1992 on the Minix newsgroup between Andrew Tanenbaum and Linus
Torvalds. Tanenbaum, who was probably a bit annoyed by Torvalds' success with his
"toy", attacked Linux and Linus in a rather disproportionate manner. His essential point
was that Linux was a monolithic system (the kernel integrates all the handlers and the
rest) and not a microkernel system (the kernel has a modular design, which means that
it can be much smaller and that modules can be loaded upon demand). The original
argument can be read just as it occurred in "The Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate" newsgroup
[214].
9.1.2. Linux's way of working
The way Torvalds worked was not very common at that time. The develop-
ment was mainly based on a mailing list 9 . The mailing list was a place where
people not only argued, but where developments also took place. And this
was because Torvalds was extremely keen on having the whole life of the pro-
ject reflected on the mailing list, which is why would ask people to send their
patches to the list. Contrary to what one might have expected (the patches
sent as attachments), Linus preferred to have the code sent in the body of
the message so that he and others could comment on the code. In any case,
although many people would provide their opinions and send corrections or
new functions, the last word would always go to Linus Torvalds, who would
decide on what code would be incorporated into Linux. To a large extent, this
is still how it works in 2007.
Note
The consolidation of Linus Torvalds as a "benevolent dictator" has given rise to a large
number of anecdotes within the project. For example, it is said that if an idea is liked,
it must be implemented. If it is not liked, it must also be implemented. The corollary,
therefore, is that good ideas are no use whatsoever (without code, of course). On another
note, if the implementation is not well-liked, it is essential to insist. A well-known
case is that of Gooch, for whom Saint Job was a mere learner. Gooch made up to one
hundred and forty six parallel patches until Linus finally decided to integrate them into
the kernel's official branch.
(9) The list's email is linuxkernel@vger.kernel.org.
The historical
messages can be seen at
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/.