Linux 2001 Timeline

From the people at Eklektix Inc. (ok, everyone knows them simply as LWN or Linux Weekly News) have written the Linux 2001 Timeline (you can read it all at once with this link, though it's 1MB download). Lots of funny notes from Linus, Eric Raymond, RMS, some sad moments. Who would have remembered that Linux kernel 2.4.0 went out only a year ago (Jan. 4, 2001), Eric Raymond promising SourceForge mirrors, and other tidbits -- A definite must-read.

Comments

Humanoid robots?

[mrroot]

From the article, July 2001:
The University of Tokyo makes a Linux-powered humanoid robot

Possible highlights from 2002's timeline:

Sept 2002... Linux-powered humanoid robot gets rooted by 1337 hacker in under 10 minutes.

Oct 2002... Microsoft makes a Windows XP-Powered Humanoid Robot, but it goes berserk, killing 12 innocent bystanders after it got a BSOD.

Nov 2002... Pay per view event: Linux-Powered Humanoid Robot vs. Windows XP-Powered Humanoid Robot in a winner-take-all death match.

Dec 2002... Army of Linux-powered humanoid robots march on Redmond, WA.

Linus flees

[Medievalist]

This is just a great (and accurate) tidbit:

Linus redefines min() and max() in the 2.4.9 stable release, then flees the country. Many people object to the new, nonstandard interface.

I've just recently started testing 2.4-based distributions - there didn't seem to be any point when they were only nominally stable.

Red Hat 7.2 seems useable, except for the broken pppd.

--Charlie

MPAA==RIAA==maffia

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

"Jack Valenti predicts that Congress will require copy-protection controls in nearly all consumer electronic devices and PCs. The lobbyist nonpareil for the Motion Picture Association of America delivered a stark warning to technology firms on Monday : Move quickly to choose standards for wrapping digital content in uncopyable layers of encryption or the federal government will do it for you."

There was another guy in Chicago in the '30s with an Italian-sounding name who used to go around businesses saying "accept our protection or something bad might happen to you".

Jack, you and your lobbyist goons should be sued for spreading thinly disguised threats like your do. Your pathetic schemes will end you making everybody's life miserable just because you don't know how to make a buck without twisting people's wrists. I say get fsck you with a steel wire brush ...