Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/August 25

Today in 1991 Linus Torvalds announced his new operating system kernel that was later named Linux.

With Version 7 Unix, the source code no longer got published and forbidden to use even for educational purposes. Computer science professor Andrew Tanenbaum therefore wrote a new source-available Unix called Minix for his teaching purposes. Many Unix enthusiasts, including Linus Torvalds, adopted Minix because they could not afford a full-fledged commercial Unix. Tanenbaum was conservative about adding features, and for many, progress was slower than desired. The arrival of Linux was therefore met with excitement by many Minix users, however immature it was. The project has developed and pioneered several aspects of open, Internet-based software development.