The LWN.net 2002 Linux Timeline

LWN.net does not shut down after our readers come through with an amazing pile of donations. Instead, a new subscription scheme is hatched. Of course, due to merchant account troubles, we don't actually get most of those donations for almost two months.

Edsgar W. Dijkstra passes away (memorial site).

Having shown that there is, in many cases, a better way to develop code is undoubtedly the open-source movement's biggest achievement so far. And if Linux does one day become the standard for operating systems, as some enthusiasts predict, it will have taught the computer industry that it is more efficient to maintain its software infrastructure collectively. This would be bad news for Microsoft and Sun, but it would benefit customers--through greater competition, lower prices and, not least, better software

-- The Economist

Linuxcare resurfaces as "a provider of software products to simplify server consolidation;" it announces a new package called "Levanta."

The Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE distributions are certified LSB compliant (announcement).

The OpenSSH source is compromised by a trojan horse (advisory).

The 2.4.19 stable kernel is released after a very long development cycle (announcement).

Sun launches the "LX50" Linux-based server announcement).

Oracle releases its clustered filesystem for Linux under the GPL (announcement).

Martin Dalecki quits as the Linux IDE maintainer; the entire IDE subsystem is immediately replaced by Jens Axboe's 2.4 foreport.

Lucky Green applies for patents on the use of Palladium for digital rights management, since Microsoft claims it knows of no way to use its "trusted computer" technology in this way (Lucky's posting).

The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.

-- Linus Torvalds

Xbox Linux 0.1, the first working Linux on the Xbox, is released (announcement).

HP and Bruce Perens part ways.

BT loses its suit against Prodigy for infringement of its "hyperlinking" patent.

OpenPKG 1.1 is released (announcement).

Mozilla 1.1 is released (release notes).

Caldera International renames itself the "SCO Group," reflecting the fact that most of its money does not come from Linux.

<== July

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