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Linus to speak on "The Origins of Linux"
Paul J. White writes: "Everyone in Silicon Valley will probably be there when Linus Torvalds lectures on "The Origins of Linux" in Mountain View, California on Wednesday, September 19, 2001 at 6 PM. It's bound to be interesting, so sign up early!"
I actually saw Richard Stallman give a talk on linux 3 years ago when I was at Georgia tech. He discussed how the software project had grown from inauspicious roots as a terminal emulater that Linus had written in C to becoming an OS, based in Andrew Tannenbaum's xenix microkernel.
Of course, the time was ripe for a project like this, since Andrew wasn't willing to accept any patches to his system, effectively preventing the inclusion of virtual memory, multitasking and a useful filesystem. Stallman made the point that any usable ase for an OS would have been successsful at that point, as long as the developer was willing to accept people's additions. Linus just happened to be in the right place at the right time
It's funny to think that, had RMS had more foresight, we'd all be using HURD today, and Linus would be an unknown doctoral student/graduate at Helsinki university!
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
"from the on-the-seventh-day-he-rested dept."
*Sigh* Well, it is a religion.
I miss the days when operating systems ran programs, and weren't political statements.
Please don't be an alarmist unless you've actually looked at the site, the event is open to all.
However, the Museum is currently housed on an old military facility (that's still owned by the military), so you need picture ID.
Non-citizens, like it says multiple times on the site, just need to bring their passport or Green Card. But everybody needs to make advance reservations so they can run you through whatever security database they use.
paul
Silly Rabbit, sigs are for kids.
Remember DOS vs OS/2
OS/2 vs Windows?
Remember Unix vs VMS?
etc?
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Several months ago /. did a book review on Torvald's own book, Just For Fun. If for whatever reason you can't go to his talk, I recommend the book. I've read it, and it's good.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Not an incredibly interesting article unless you are going to be on the West cost next week.
However, I did notice the Computer Museum's list of fellows, or more specifically, individuals of outstanding merit and accomplishment who have contributed to the development of computing.
Some familiar faces are there: Vint Cerf, Dennis Ritchie, Woz... I wonder when Linus will grace this list. Who else is missing?!? Tim Berners-Lee? Bill Gates? Bjourne?
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
I'm a student at Waterloo and last year my friends and I organized a great event at our Univeristy that brought an interesting interview of Web inventor, Tim Berners-Lee to our school.
The cool part is that to get TBL we didn't have to do much. A distance-learning program called the VisionQuest Series made all the arrangements and all we did was tune in with our browsers and satellite. A question of mine was even chosen and TBL answered it.
Why don't more people speak through this forum, or something like it? I wonder if those VisionQuest people approached Torvalds? I would love to hear Linus speak but I can't quite make it to California. When is distance-learning finally gonna be popular?!
When you RSVP, please provide: For US citizens: Full name, affiliation, address, phone number, and notification of US citizenship. (Please bring your picture ID.)
Bush: How can we get rid of all these commie bastards that the MPAA keeps bugging me about?
Ashcroft: If we grab their hero, and make them want to come here for him, we can get them all in one place.
Cheney pulls off Bush mask
Cheney: They would never fall for that, it's a military base!
Ashcroft: I got two words for ya, slash dot!
Linus: Um, Mr. Asscroft, that's one word.
Ashcroft: Guards, sieze him!
Cheney: IANAL, but BWahahahahahhaha!
Umm, people with green cards and non-US passports aren't citzens, so I think you're ok.
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
They are obviously afraid that Linus will be hit by a bus, driven on the wrong side of the road by some English guy.
John Carmack fan, browsing at +5 since 1999.
"The Origin of Linux", doesn't sound right, I'd rather have it
"The Origin of Linux by means of penguin fanatics".
Comparing the work of Linus (& crew) to the work of Darwin is perhaps not fair, but their work had both a revolutionary effect and was regarded with contempt from many in power.
Not too many people these days questioning evolution right?
...the way our laws are going all the professional OSS coders are gonna be fleeing the country anyway (probably to Russia just to make the irony that much more perfect), so why not arrest them before they can escape? After all, every one of them used their brains today, and brains can be used to write code, and code can be used to circumvent encryption schemes, so the brain is a circumvention device. It's basically a crime to be a computer programmer in the US now, so git while the gittin's good is my advice...
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
This site is a bit over-the-top. Would apparently lay the entirety of Linux, the OSS movement, the wheel, and sliced bread at Linus's feet.
Not a word about the GNU project, RMS, the FSF, the GPL, etc. Just "appease the Linux fans by publically worshipping their poster boy!".
Heh, I bet RMS is taking an ANGRY sponge bath this morning. =P
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
"do you think he'll have a powerpoint presentation? hehehehehe"
What do you mean? Two years ago, Linus praised Microsoft for at last producing a useful program. Remember, back then there were no viable free option.
Linus is more pragmatic than NOT using PowerPoint. However, if there is a viable option today, I believe he may use it.
> Yes, being from Finland, Linus will obviously have Swedish as his native language.
Well, surprising though it may sound, There is a minority of Swedish-speakers in Finland and Linus is one of them. You could check out his book 'Just For Fun' for a more detailed explanation of why this is so.
dave