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Linus Torvalds and friends: how Linux evolved from solo act (www.theregister.com)

submitted 2 days ago by cm0002@toast.ooo to c/linux@programming.dev

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If you know anything about Linux's history, you'll remember it all started with Linus Torvalds posting to the Minix Usenet group on August 25, 1991, that he was working on "a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." We know that the "hobby" operating system today is Linux, and except for PCs and Macs, it pretty much runs the world.

Did you ever wonder, though, how it went from being one person's project to being a group effort? I knew most of the story because I'd been using Linux since 1993. But I thought I'd ask Linus, and some of the early Linux developers.

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[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 5 points 2 days ago

There's an argument that BSD would have been dominant in that case. It was bogged down in lawsuits claiming that it was pirated Bell Unix at the time, but they were dismissed not long after.

The arrival of Linux also slowed development of the GNU Hurd kernel, so that's another possible contender.