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LWN Does Year in Review for Linux
HeUnique was too busy to post, but pointed out LWN's Timeline of 1999 for Linux. Quite a ride over the last year - complete with lots of images and historical markers. It's broken into months or the whole year. This is version .8 - 1.0 will be out after the end of the year.
First thing that i'll put in it is Linus' initial
post to the minix news group.
Well, at least we can expect version 1.0 to be Y2K-comp. :)
Seriously, I think what'll be even more interesting is next year's timeline. With the rate at which linux has been growing and evolving (or devolving, depending on your point of view), who knows what next year holds?
Well, the end of the world, for one thing...
BTW...nah, never mind.
===
-Ravagin
Karma: T-rexcellent.
I think 1999 was the year Linux became know, but 2000 will be the year it makes history. We can expect some very interesting developments, including a Linux vs Win2K showdown and probably the unveiling of MS's strategy against Linux.
So what do you all think is the most SIGNIFICANT happenning for Linux this year? Is it more the openning up to the "public" (e.g. Redhat distributions in retail) or some innovative programming/uses?
Redhat 6.0 was released? when did this happen! why didn't anyone tell me! :P
"You should never have your best trousers on when you turn
"You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth."
-Henrik Ib
What about the Microsoft windows timeline? come on, now there's some interesting reading for you! (or not)
"Normal people
Listed as one of the year's events is a series of April Fools jokes, including a fake news story where Anti-MS protesters rioted through the streets of Seattle. And eight months later....
Conspiracy theories anyone?????
The Kulturwehrmacht
Finding God in a Dog
The greatest thing to happen to Linux is all these Linux startups going IPO. When a company like VA Linux's stock goes up 500% in one day, and breaks a stock market record, it attracts a lot of attention. It's in the papers, and Joe Middleaged guy sees it. I mean, I'd never heard of VA Linux, but simply having the word "Linux" in its name made it have the most profitable IPO ever! I've resolved to buy into the next Linux IPO. I'm also going to delete Windoze and install Red Hat 6.0! Woo hoo!
No comment at this time
Wow, compare the '98 year to the '99 year. Look how much more stuff has happened in the linux community compared to 98! It's exciting to see this massive growth. Onward Linux!!
-D0n'+ h$+3 M3 b3C0u5e 1'M 4 1337 Hax0R!-
Squid will not cache that timeline, so the 200 Linux users of a ISP will each download his own copy. Netscape won't probably cache it either, so you will need to download it again if you come back.
The pages will not be indexed, so if you make a query in Altavista with "+timeline +linux" you wont find the page.
I think there was a Slashdot article abaout this a short time ago, maybe we need some more until we learn.. =)
Note that you could still use a CGI and dont have all the problem I listed. Ask me how.. (and eeeevrybody will give you the same answers =) ).
The Jesse Berst Timeline!
January: "Leenucks?" -- Jesse Berst
March: "Linux will never amount to anything!"
May: "Linux might give Microsoft a run for it's money
July: "I always said Linux was a contender."
September: "Linux beats NT hands down."
November: "Go linux go!"
'Cause .8 would be August. Y'know, "1.3 = 1 year from 1999 (period) March" i.o.w. March of 2000. In perl (and Perl) this is $ver = (localtime[5] - 1999) . "." . localtime[4];
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
This has got to be the funniest timeline yet! Remember when Posh and Becks got married? What about Sporty's duet with Eddy Van Halen, "Baby When You're Gone"?
Or how they split with Geri? And now Ginger Spice and that Ginger Geezer, Chris Evans? Imagine what the kids'll look like!!!
You can find out about all this and more at The Spice Girls Timeline
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
And not to mention that Corel's stock is skyrocketing because of CorelLinux, despite the fact that 98% of their business has nothing to do with Linux.
All the IPOs just seem to be creating hype, and I'm not sure it's all good hype... yes, the defeat-Microsoft-in-your-face-Bill-Gates hype is nice, but still...
"The amount of intelligence in the universe is a constant. Unfortunately, the stupid population keeps on rising"
This timeline includes a bunch of events, like people winning
awards or producing offsprings. They are prominent people and
those are all good things, but what does it have to do with Linux?
It's cool to see Creative Labs pull a 180.
Take a look at the time line:
(January 9) Creative Labs says there will be
no SB Live driver for Linux. From their
note: "Creative has no plans of releasing its
intellectual property to the general
public."
(January 12) Creative Labs advertises for a
Linux driver writer to produce an SB Live
driver (job posting here).
(May) Creative Technologies releases a beta SB
Live driver. The driver proves problematic,
but, due to its closed-source nature, can not
be fixed.
(November) Creative Technology releases a
driver for its SB Live card - under the
GPL.
btw, the opensource driver is excellent, no
problems here!
It's biased almost to the point of being propaganda, even. Almost every reference to Microsoft is either exaggerated against the company or in some way worded so as to make Linux appear superior. Sure, in some cases this is fact, but in others, not so much. I noticed specifically that the blurb about the first Mindcraft benchmarks was quite exaggerated and even factually inaccurate. And where was the mention of the results of the SECOND Mindcraft tests? There was mention of the ANNOUNCEMENT of the tests, but nothing about the results, which proved that the original tests were correct.
I'm all for Linux enthusiasm, but Linux propaganda just starts to worry me a bit.
--
Mindcraft tries again, and issues this call for an "open benchmark" to retry its NT-vs.-Linux tests. This time, people who know something about Linux will be allowed to participate
June, 1999
The Mindcraft benchmark is rerun with Linux experts present. NT still wins; Linux comes out with set of things to fix. Many of the fixes happen within a few weeks.
- Sam Ruby
Just watch 2000; Linux will start eating away at the desktop.
--------- Webmaster, http://www.cpureview.com and
Truth is presented in a non-confrontational manner. Immediately marked down as flamebait.
Does the truth really hurt that much?
2000...the Open Source Natalie Portman IPO occurs 2000...the Natalie Portman guy buys Andover.net
Yeah, but during this, Andover.net patents the One-Click Natalie Portman technology, and sues Barnes & Portman for duplicating the patented technology.
wow... my mind reels at the possibilities. i could maintain an official public "anti-spam" front, while handing out massive moderator points to identified trolls. i wonder how long people would keep coming back to debate what should be done about the sudden proliferation of trolling on "nat dot - statues for nerds. chicks that rule."
Nat Dot.
Thats funny, you might have something there. I wonder if it's registered.
Anyone notice how much IBM was in Linux news this year (and in this timeline)? ;)
I didn't count or anything, but it seemed like more than any other "non-linux company" (i.e. Red Hat et. al don't count
I'm really impressed with the way that ol' dinosaur has embraced the linux community despite a few slip ups (like the mentioned laptop thing).
They've still got some work to do (like stop boasting about having the most software patents of any company in the world year after year), but I really hope some of the other traditional big guns are watching and learning!
Keep it up IBM!
Someone moderated thsi as Flamebait?!?!?! Its funny... maybe the moderator had something up his ass... now you can moderate this down too...
Someone moderated this as Offtopic?!?!?! Its funny, just like the other one that got moderated down... maybe the moderator had something up his ass... now you can moderate this down too...
-- Al Fasoldt, Technofile.
This guy is a tech journalist for a local newspaper where I am (Syracuse NY). I remember reading some of his stuff about a year ago; all windows-oriented, usually directed to an audience of clueless users. I read this quote, saw his name, and thought 'wait, this guy is hyping linux?' I checked the URL and yep, sure enough he's the good old Al Fasoldt I know and never really loved. I knew he played with linux at least, since he's posted in the twcny.rr.linux newsgroup more than once, but all I can say is, wow. If linux had that much influence over this journalist, what's stopping the rest of the them?
I really liked the timeline, though some of it can't be right. I'm almost positive that Linus getting his doctorate wasn't way back in may, because I don't think I even read slashdot back in may, though I could be wrong. Maybe it was just slashdot getting an old story, but if it were, I would definitely remember the ACs bitching about it. Anyway, I learned quite a bit, like ESR speaking at microsoft. Weird.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
If Linux is to break out of its niche as a server OS and geektoy, Redhat, & VA need to join Corel in the move to get serious about the desktop and get apps and the hardware support needed for those apps.
Maybe Redhat should buy a good chunk of Adobe? Hell, they currently outweigh Adobe by $10billion. Adobe isn't growing much but they do have positive cash-flow, and with their near monopoly position (in their core market) owning Adobe would give Redhat a certain bargaining power in the arena of hardware vendor support that it currently lacks.
Interestingly enough, it's from kde.org's "Food for Thought" section. Go here.
Under march, you'll be reminded of Eric S Raymond's "Take My Job, Please" essay fiasco. If you go and reread it, as I did, you'll notice the following text at the bottom as one of the qualifications ESR said was necessary to have his job:
"You'll need to be financially secure enough not to need to have a regular job. (This one will give you some perks but no pay.)"
Especially not $36 million. No sir, I wouldn't call that pay. That one's definitely a perk.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Check out the excellent c't benchmark showdown. It shows that in one configuration (two fast ethernet cards in the same machine, serving static pages) NT can truly outperform Linux, but that in all the realistic configurations tested Linux beats NT, usually by a wide margin.
Naturally something has to be done about that one case where NT sneaks ahead, right?
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I think the biggest accomplishment for Linux when it comes to the desktop can be seen by comparing screenshots of the default X install of Redhat 5.1 (a bare-bones fvwm, very daunting to the beginner) vs 6.0 (KDE).
That alone is a huge accomplishment.