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Who Wrote Linux?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the every-universe-needs-a-creation-myth dept.

Dozix007 writes "There is an interesting article by Jan Stafford on the myths of Linux creation. This episode of the series of Linux creation myths, one fellow plays "I Spy," and the other reveals the true origins of the man from Redmond. The author is offering a $50 gift certificate and IT books to the best spinners of tall Linux creation tales. If you can outdo these tall tales."

10 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Linus the writer? by SIGALRM · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Who wrote Linux? The spy who loved Linux
    Isn't it more proper to ask, "Who created/developed Linux?"....

    I mean, Linus is the creator of Linux, not the "writer of Linux", am I correct? I know I'm being picky (I "write" code) but I see this alot.
    --
    Sigs cause cancer.
    1. Re:Linus the writer? by Pharmboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I mean, Linus is the creator of Linux, not the "writer of Linux", am I correct? I know I'm being picky (I "write" code) but I see this alot.

      More importantly, Linus is the copyright holder for the name Linux. I think everyone knows the whole story by now: Linus gets Minix, doesn't like limitations, uses it to write a new OS, quoted for the famous "real men don't backup, they mirror their data via ftp" or similar, a year later, goes GPL, everyone pitches in, it gets popular, Darl smokes crack (that bill bought for him) and can't just break into Linus's house to steal Linux so he hires lawyers to do it for him.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  2. Re:Here it comes.... 3, 2, 1... by Pharmboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    or at least mod Taco as "-1 Troll". You know he was laughing his ass off when he posted this one.

    Can we do that? ;)

    --
    Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  3. Re:I thought.... by Enry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yea, and somehow, Vincent Cerf and Newt Gingrich keep giving Gore credit for it.

  4. The truth is hard to believe by manabadman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The truth is just as unlikely as these made up stories.

    A world class operating system started from scratch by a single person, with no commercial incentive?

    A group of hundreds (thousands?) of persons are from differing countries organization, commercial and voluntarily maintaining and improving it? Concerted development support from companies (IBM, Sun, Novell, HP, Fujitsu, et al) that are fierce competitors every other day of the week?

    Its really amazing. Good luck to everyone trying to spin a better tale than this.

    1. Re:The truth is hard to believe by Stallmanite · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A world class operating system started from scratch by a single person, with no commercial incentive?

      I assume you mean Stallman. ;-)

  5. What's interesting' by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... is if you replace 'written' with 'created', 'based on', or 'developed', you can concievably get different answers.

    Sorry if I'm being nauseatingly obvious, but it occured to me after considering that I was blending the terms 'written' and 'created by' together.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  6. "Who wrote Linux?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful


    "Who cares?"

  7. "I am Sparticus!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'm looking forward to the day in the future, when Linux is ultimately brought to the courts by Microsoft, who, bloated with scores upon scores of software patents, has finally come to crush this upstart OS once and for all.

    The beady-eyed, gray-haired judge will look down on the Open Source Community and asks that fateful question: "So...which one of you wrote this 'Linux'?"

    And one by one we will all get to our feet, till there are a million-and-more-strong standing, and declare:

    "I wrote Linux."

    And it will be true.

  8. uhhhh by rnd() · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Uh, the first linux filesystem was Minix, and Minix was the basis for the early shell of Linux.

    --

    Amazing magic tricks