The LWN.net five-year timeline [LWN.net]

LWN.net is almost five years old. As a sort of premature celebration, we have taken a look at five years worth of Linux reporting and picked out a small number of truly interesting occurrences. Enjoy, and come back in five years for the next installment...

See also the change log to see what has been added in later versions of the timeline.

Acknowledgements

The LWN.net five-year timeline was produced by Rebecca Sobol with input across the net.

Thanks to the following who have helped to make the five-year timeline more complete.

David A. Wheeler

1998

The Linux Weekly News begins publication. The very first issue, dated January 22, was a just a tiny hint of what LWN was to become. The LWN Daily updates began in April 1998. Things have changed since then, with Linux and LWN. It has been an interesting adventure.

The Linux user community wins InfoWorld's technical support award; (February) Red Hat 5.0 also won their Operating System award. But it was the tech support award that truly opened some eyes; everybody had been saying that Linux had no support. This was the beginning of the end of the "no support" argument.

I think it's great if you are willing to promote Linux to your boss. As long as you are aware of the risk you are taking. The risk of getting fired. (Feb. 16).

Is a Linux takeover likely? Give me a break. Of course not. (June 23).

I personally think Windows NT will be the mainstream operating system within a few years. [...] My belief: Linux will never go mainstream. (Sep. 9).

I've always said that Linux could become a serious challenger to Microsoft's Windows NT. (Sep. 28).

-- Linux according to Jesse Berst

Eric Raymond and friends come up with the "open source" term. (February) They apply for trademark status, and put up the opensource.org web site. Thus begins the formal effort to push Linux for corporate use.

Linus announces Linux 2.1.92 and declares a 2.1 feature freeze. (April) The announcment goes as far as to say "...there are probably still bugs with some of the new code, but I'll freeze new features for the upcoming 2.2 kernel." This freeze turned out to be rather slushy, to say the least.

Linus 3.0 is announced; (April) the birth of Linus's second daughter causes great joy, and substantial disruption in kernel development as all work stops and many patches get lost. Some grumbling results as it becomes clear just how dependent the entire process is on Linus's continual presence.

Kernel 2.1.115 is released; Linus calls a code freeze, (August) for real, this time. Sort of.

The first pre-2.2 kernel is released. (December)

The Linux-based "Google" search engine pops up. (May)

The first release of the Mandrake distribution is announced. (July) Mandrake started out as a version of the Red Hat distribution with international language support and KDE added.

The Gartner Group says there is little hope for free software. (June) "...these operating systems will not find widespread use in mainstream commercial applications in the next three years, nor will there be broad third-party application support."

A report from IDC says that Linux shipments rose by more than 200% in 1998, and its market share rose by more than 150%. (December) Linux has a 17% market share, and a growth rate unmatched by any other system on the market.

1999

The LWN Penguin Gallery is launched in October. It remains a popular LWN feature.

Linuxcare rolls out its service offerings, becoming a high-profile Linux company almost overnight.

Linux DVD devlopers crack the DVD encryption scheme in November. They succeed in demonstrating (1) that the DVD scheme is poor, and (2) that closed-source cryptography is almost always a mistake.

Once widely denigrated by commercial developers as chaotic programming by committee, open source is now expected to come into its own this year as a business model, with potentially far-reaching consequences for developers and consumers of computer software.

-- Amy Harmon, New York Times.

The Microsoft funded Mindcraft study is released in April and rerun in June. NT wins; Linux gets several bugs identified and fixed. Here is the study.

The Linux Kernel in 1999

In January Linus Torvalds complains that he is not getting ISDN patches, and threatens to put out 2.2 without them.
(January 25) Kernel 2.2.0 is released after more than two years of development.
(May 12) Kernel 2.2.8 comes out, along with the 2.3.0 development kernel.
(August 3) Linus calls for a 2.3 feature freeze in two weeks. It ends up taking rather longer than that...
(August 13) Stable kernel 2.2.11 is released, and Linus hands off the 2.2 kernel entirely to Alan Cox.
(September 23) The first ext3 patch is released, making journaling filesystems for Linux a reality.
In December Linus complains that he is not getting ISDN patches, and threatens to put out 2.4 without them.

Fortunately for Microsoft, however, there are only so many developers in the world willing to devote their talents to writing, testing, and debugging software pro bono publico.... It is unlikely ... that a sufficient number of open-source developers will commit to developing and continually updating the large variety of applications that an operating system would need to attract in order to present a significant number of users with a viable alternative to Windows.

-- Judge Jackson's findings of fact, from the Microsoft trial

Software in the Public Interest becomes a non-profit organization.

Microsoft is found to be a monopoly in U.S. District Court. The findings of fact show little faith in the ability of Linux to present a challenge to Microsoft.

The first LinuxWorld Conference and Expo is held in San Jose. As the first big commercial "trade show" event for Linux, it serves notice to the world that Linux has arrived. 12,000 people are said to have attended. (LWN coverage here).

VA Research, soon to be VA Linux systems, now VA Software, buys the Linux.com domain in March, for $1,000,000. Microsoft's rumored bid for the domain is frustrated. The site goes live in May.

Romancing the Stock Market, or Linux and the Initial Public Offering

Red Hat files for its IPO in June. The IPO happens in August and the stock price immediately rises to $50. By September stock in Red Hat hits $135/share. Red Hat stock splits in December.
Shares in Applix more than double on volume in September, reaching nearly 27 million shares - three times the 9 million shares that are actually on the market.
Cobalt Networks files for its IPO in September; goes public in November. The stock immediately begins trading at $130/share, almost six times its offering price ($22/share).
An unknown company called LinuxOne also files for an IPO in September.
Andover.net acquires Slashdot in June and Freshmeat in August. The company files for files for its IPO in September, goes public in December at $18/share, closes over $60.
VA Linux Systems files in October. In November the share price is set at $11-13/share. VA goes public the day after Andover.net, after two repricings. The final IPO price is $30/share; that price rises immediately to $300, before closing around $250. It sets the record for the biggest IPO rise in the history of the NASDAQ.
Linux fever strikes many other stocks, including some that are peripherally related to Linux, if at all.

2000

Linux survives the year-2000 bug in fine form, along with the rest of the world.

VA Linux Systems announces SourceForge in January, along with its intention to acquire Andover.net. The acquisition is completed in June.

The DVD case takes an ugly turn with the questioning of Jon Johansen, the 16-year-old Norwegian hacker who first posted the DeCSS code. The Global Internet Liberty Campaign publishes this Member Statement on the case.

LWN is acquired by Tucows.com in April.

Caldera Systems files for its initial public offering in January, the first for 2000. Soon after Caldera receives $30 million in venture capital. The company goes public on March 21. The stock, which was offered at $14/share began trading at $26 and closed at $29.44. It thus registered a 110% gain on its first day. Reports that SCO may be purchased by Caldera are circulating by July followed by an official announcement in August.

Linuxcare files for its IPO on the heels of Caldera. Nothing else is heard about it until March, when the company submits a new S-1 (IPO) filing. Then in May Linuxcare lays off a substantial portion of its workforce and officially withdraws its IPO filing. [2000 Linux Stock Index]

The LWN.net Linux Stock Index peaks at 199 on January 10, 2000. At year end the index falls into the 30's mirroring the overall plunge in technology stocks.

We see Linux as being as much of a fad as the Internet was in 1995. Linux is more like the Internet in being an industry-wide initiative that all vendors can support. That makes it very different from supporting Windows or other technology that's very good but that one vendor has all the control over.

-- Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM VP of technology and strategy in this interview for News.com.

IBM makes code available: to its Journaled File System (JFS) in February. IBM's port of Linux to the S/390 also becomes available for download for the first time in February.

In July IBM announces plans to spend $200 million over four years to make it easier for European companies to bring its software to Linux.

IBM's Linux-powered wristwatch is announced on August 7, 2000, drawing a great deal of attention.

IBM announces plans to invest $1 billion in Linux in 2001 in December.

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) and Linux Internationalization Initiative (LI18NUX) announce that they have incorporated as the Free Standards Group (May) the first LI18NUX2000 Globalization Specification is released in August.

David Wheeler released the paper now titled Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers! under the original title Quantitative Measures for Why You Should Consider Open Source Software / Free Software?

Normally, when you integrate almost 5MB of patches, bad things happen. This time, a miracle occurred. As I uploaded the resultant kernel, a specter of the holy penguin appeared before me, and said "It is Good. It is Bugfree".

As if wanting to re-assure me that yes, it really =was= the holy penguin, it finally added "Do you have any Herring?" before fading out in a puff of holy penguin-smoke. Only a faint whiff of rancid fish remains as I type in these words..

In short, not only are most of Alan's patches integrated, I have it on higher authority that the result is perfect.

So if it doesn't compile for you, you must be doing something wrong.

-- Linus Torvalds' announcement of the 2.4.0-test2 release.

The kernel.org FTP/web site and its mirrors begin hosting cryptographic software which is seen as a significant next step towards including cryptographic code in the Linux kernel. This policy is the result of the recent change (effective January 14) in U.S. export regulations.

In May the point that 2.4 remains a distant goal is reinforced when Alexander Viro posts a list of changes which will go into the 2.3 directory cache with a warning to anybody who maintains a filesystem that is not part of the standard kernel tree: talk to him soon or watch your code break.

Ted Ts'o steps forward to become the new 2.4 status list maintainer in July.

September, Linus Torvalds declares that there are no major known bugs in the 2.4.0-test kernel series. He decrees that only patches which fix a critical problem will be accepted. "So when you send me a patch, either bug Ted to mark the issue as 'critical' first, or pay me money. It's that easy." Some hackers decide that bribing TODO list maintainer Ted Ts'o with exotic liquor is a better way to go.

2001

The fact that I've held on to 2.4.x for too long, mostly due to the VM problems, really doesn't help. That just makes me _less_ likely to be careful. Especially when the last known VM problem was fixed (ie the Oracle highmem deadlock), I had a very strong urge to just "get the d*mn thing out to Marcelo".

-- Linus on the 2.4.15 mess

The Linux Kernel in 2001

The long-awaited 2.4.0 kernel is released on January 4. (announcement).
Linus merges ReiserFS into 2.4.1, despite a statement that only serious bug fixes will be accepted.
Linus says that the 2.5 kernel will open up "in a week or two" (June posting).
Stable kernel 2.4.10 is released in September, with a completely new virtual memory implementation. Much complaining follows, but the new code stabilizes quickly.
Marcelo Tosatti is named as the maintainer of the 2.4 kernel in November, just prior to the 2.5.0 release.
The 2.5.0 kernel is released, complete with a filesystem corruption bug (which also affects 2.4.15).

This is completely unprecedented. A company launching and aggressive marketing campaign for a product that it has no claim over and for which it cannot obtain even one cent in direct revenues.

-- IT-Director on IBM.

IBM's "Peace, Love, and Linux" ad campaign takes off in March and by April the company is in trouble over its "Peace, Love, and Linux" graffiti in several cities.

There are over 2300 commercial Linux applications, according to a press release from IBM.

The Caldera/SCO deal completes in May leaving Caldera the owner of UnixWare and OpenServer.

Sony's Playstation Linux kit sells out in eight minutes depite a doubling of the available stock.

[gcc] Linux contains over $1 billion worth of software according to this June study by David A. Wheeler.

The GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) 3.0 is released (announcement).

VA Linux Systems exits the hardware business, choosing to concentrate on SourceForge instead (announcement). The company also lays off 150 people.

The Linux Standard Base specification v1.0 is released (July announcement).

The one-billionth second since the beginning of the Unix epoch passes on September 9.

[Dmitry]

July: Dmitry Sklyarov is arrested in Las Vegas after Adobe complains about the Advanced eBook Processor.
Adobe backs down and calls for Dmitry Sklyarov to be free. Too little, too late.
August: Dmitry Sklyarov is released on bail, but confined to northern California.

September: Dmitry Sklyarov is charged with DMCA violations and conspiracy; the potential penalties add up to 25 years in prison; he pleads "not guilty".

Yet Mr. Sklyarov still languishes in jail, puzzled, no doubt, about how a free society can jail someone for writing code that was legal where written, just because he comes to the United States and gives a report on encryption weaknesses.

-- Lawrence Lessig in the New York Times.

October: The 2.2.20 changelog is censored due to Alan Cox's fear of DMCA problems if he documents security fixes (changelog).
November: Dmitry Sklyarov announces a defense based on constitutional challenges to the DMCA, based on free speech and jurisdictional issues.
December: Charges against Dmitry Sklyarov are dropped conditional on one year of good behavior and testimony in the ElcomSoft trial (U.S. DoJ press release).

Co-founder Liz Coolbaugh goes on medical leave in August and senior editor Michael Hammel leaves in October due to LWN's financial difficulties. We still miss them both.

2002

Too often, though, programmers, system administrators and other IT pros become understandably outraged by the latest attempts to restrict technology--and react by doing precisely the wrong thing. They set up irate Web sites, launch online petition drives and tell all their friends to write to their congressional representatives.

Here's the bitter truth: These efforts are mostly a waste of time. Sure, they may make you feel better, but they're not the way to win....

Instead, technologists should be doing what comes naturally: inventing technology that outpaces the law and could even make new laws irrelevant.

-- News.com's Declan McCullagh on how to be an activist.

Free software and hackers vs "The Law", a brief summary.

Jon Johansen is indicted in Norway for his role in creating and posting the DeCSS code in January. The trial begins in December. No decision has been made as of this writing.
The "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act," otherwise known as "Consume, But Don't Try Programming Anything." U.S. Senator Ernest Hollings submits the CBDTPA in March. The bill would, for all practical purposes, make free software illegal. (Bill text).
The ElcomSoft trial or the continuing adventures of Dmitry Sklyarov. An attempt to get the ElcomSoft trial dismissed fails in April after the U.S. court decides that it does, indeed, have jurisdiction over the case. In May a constitutional attack on the DMCA fails; presiding Judge Whyte argues that a ban on circumvention devices is constitutional, even if those devices have legal uses. The November trial date is delayed when U.S. immigration refuses to allow the defendants into the country. The trial finally happens in December. The jury returns a "not guilty" verdict for Elcomsoft, on the grounds that the Russian firm was unaware that its software was illegal.

The Linux Standard Base v1.1 is released in January, along with v1.0 of the Li18nux internationalization standard. Version 1.2 of the Linux Standard Base is released in June.

Disney buys a bunch of Linux systems from HP, despite the fact that the Disney-backed CBDTPA would make Linux illegal (HP press release). [Linux NetworX]

The "largest and most powerful Linux supercomputer" is sold to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by Linux NetworX (announcement).

No one could have possibly arranged for more publicity for the open source movement and its importance than Bill Gates coming and giving $400 million to fight Linux.

-- Atul Chitnis, Linux Bangalore/2002 organizer

Eric Raymond leaks another "Halloween document". Halloween VII suggests that FUD attacks have failed; the future lies in patent and "total cost of ownership" attacks.

Linux Bangalore/2002 is endorsed by the Indian government, despite a recent visit by Bill Gates attempting to head off Indian adoption of free software.

Oracle begins its "unbreakable Linux" campaign in June, and releases its clustered filesystem for Linux under the GPL in August.

The Linux Kernel

How do I put it. I'm the last straggler coming back from the hunt, and I've got what looks like it might be a wooly mammoth on my shoulders, and my tribesmen are complaining that I'm late for dinner. How about helping me by cutting down a tree for the roasting spit instead? Think thoughts of the poor hungry Microsoft tribe eating NTFS.

-- Hans Reiser submits Reiser4.

Linus Torvalds breaks the 2.5.2 kernel with a new kdev_t type, thus beginning the 2.5 development series in earnest (Linus's posting).
Linus starts experimenting with BitKeeper as a way of managing kernel changes. By most (but not all) accounts, the experiment is a success.
The 2.5 kernel feature freeze goes into effect (mostly) as planned on October 31.
The 2.4.19 stable kernel is released after a very long development cycle (August announcement) and stable kernel 2.4.20 is released in November. (announcement)

LWN.net is unacquired and becomes, once again, an independent organization in January. The new LWN.net site launches to decidedly mixed reviews in June. Unable to sell advertising, LWN.net announces it will shut down on August 1 (announcement + 127 comments), barring a miracle. Miracles happen, 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. By year-end LWN.net is (barely) sustaining itself on subscriptions.

The Creative Commons Project launches with several licenses aimed at helping creators make their work freely available (web site).

(Log in to post comments)