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20th anniversary of the first Linux post
On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds made a now-famous post to the comp.os.minix newsgroup that announced a new free operating system. We have certainly come a long way since then (note the "bang" (!) path in the headers in the posting for instance). "I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things)."
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20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 25, 2011 18:22 UTC (Thu) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]
Turned out to be quite the hobby!
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 25, 2011 18:52 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]
A small nit: the bang in the path header is because this post was made to usenet. The path field is added by NNTP servers to avoid loops when propagating messages and that syntax is still used today.
There's nothing anachronistic about seeing a bang there (or at least nothing more anachronistic than NNTP itself, which still rules over all web-based forii IMO)
You might be thinking of old UUCP email addresses that used bang in the email address, but those were well on their way out (I started using internet mail in 1984 and I don't think I ever used a UUCP address) by the time Linux was born.
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 25, 2011 19:01 UTC (Thu) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]
> A small nit: the bang in the path header is because this post was
> made to usenet. The path field is added by NNTP servers to avoid > loops when propagating messages and that syntax is still used today.
Thanks, I didn't know that (but perhaps should have) ... I certainly remember using bang paths to route mail back in the day, but perhaps it had mostly died out by '91 ...
oh well, we *still* have come a long way since Linus's post :)
jake
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 25, 2011 19:16 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
"Forii" isn't a word. Or, not a Latin word. The Latin plural is probably "fora", but so what? The English is easier: "forums". Likewise "viruses", "octopuses" and even "vertexes". If you want to say "virus" for more than one, or "octopoda" for the chthonian, or "vertices" for the corners, you will be required, too, to "curry Fauvel", not "curry favor", and to eat "umble pie" instead of "humble pie".
Plurals Posted Aug 25, 2011 20:34 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Heh, nice post. I always find it funny when geek types use pseudo-Latin plurals. Or better yet: "I don't get any virii on my Linux boxen."
Plurals Posted Aug 25, 2011 20:53 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
Or they pluralise Greek words in pseudo-Latin. That's sure to infuriate just about everybody!
Plurals Posted Aug 26, 2011 0:04 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Or get their declensions in a twist :-)
The usual blunder is to muddle 1st declension singular (eg mensa) with 3rd declension plural (bella). The geek equivalent is to muddle 2nd declension singular (eg dominus) with 4th declension (which is nominally plural) (eg virus).
So they take a word which is NOT singular, and apply the wrong rule, to convert a "plural" to a plural!
:-)
Cheers,
Plurals Posted Aug 26, 2011 7:23 UTC (Fri) by Darkmere (subscriber, #53695) [Link]
Yeah, don't they realize the mess we'll end up in if you start combining Greek and Latin, soon we'll have Television.
And we can't have that, can we?
Plurals Posted Aug 25, 2011 21:09 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]
I always find it funny when wordies get all het up over intentional spelling play. I used air-quotes when I wrote it but I guess you didn't see them. Should I have said "[sic]"? Probably, but it ruins the moment.
Plurals Posted Sep 11, 2011 14:49 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
All het up.
Thanks. I don't get to hear that phrase much anymore. :-)
It *is* fun watching them get their declensions in a twist, isn't it? (That is my new permanent phrase for this sort of situation; thanks, coiner.)
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 25, 2011 21:55 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
It's interesting that fairly young English-speaking children can pluralize (the famous wug test) but that in their adult years they may suddenly worry about a whole bunch of rules that don't and never have existed.
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 29, 2011 22:33 UTC (Mon) by alextingle (guest, #20593) [Link]
I don't know what version of English you've been taught, but "fora", "octopi" and "vertices" are the normal plural forms where I come from. Only an ignoramus (pl. ignorami) or an American would attempt such nonsensical tongue-twisters as "octopusses" or "vertexes".
Oh, and it's "favour".
(And the serious point: you come over as a mite pompous.)
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Sep 1, 2011 14:44 UTC (Thu) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link]
"Octopi" doesn't make sense from any perspective. The "pus" in "octopus" is actually Greek "pous", "foot". If you're going to shoot for a plural that matches the etymology, it should be "octopodes". I mean, English did get the word from Greek via Latin, and in Latin I imagine it was treated as a second declension noun with plural "octopi". But if you're going to go for the original plural, it only makes sense to go all the way, right?
(Or you could just use the English plural for all of these, since they're English words now. I mean, "messiah" is a Hebrew word originally, so are you going to pluralize it as "messihim"? Have fun with that approach. It will certainly give you an opportunity to learn a lot of foreign languages' rules for pluralization!)
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Sep 1, 2011 17:39 UTC (Thu) by alextingle (guest, #20593) [Link]
> Or you could just use the English plural for all of
> these, since they're English words now.
Your arrogant assumption that only you know how to speak "proper" English is simply offensive.
What I'm telling you is that "octopi" *is* the English plural for this word. There are other ways of pluralising it ("octopuses" and yes, I'm surprised to find even "octopodes" in my dictionary), but for me "octopi" is the one that sounds right.
I'm far from being a foreign language nerd. I don't use that plural form because I know its etymology and want to show off, I use that plural because that's the one I learned from those around me when I grew up. That is the one and only criterion for "proper" English.
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Sep 1, 2011 18:12 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
No, it is *an* English plural. Octopuses is the more common form in British English according to the OED, which matches my experience. The OED also notes "forums" as the plural of "a meeting or medium for an exchange of views" with "fora" limited to "a public square or marketplace used for judicial and other business", which does kind of imply that the use of "forums" is very much not limited to ignoramuses[1] or Americans.
[1] "The correct plural of ignoramus is ignoramuses. This may sound odd, considering the word is from Latin, leading one to think the plural ought to be ignorami. However , it was never a noun in Latin, only a verb, meaning literally we do not know, and the English word derives from the name of a character in George Ruggles play Ignoramus (1615), a satirical comedy exposing lawyers' ignorance."
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Sep 1, 2011 22:29 UTC (Thu) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link]
Perhaps I was unclear: by "English plural" I meant "plural formed according to normal English rules", not "plural you'd find in an English dictionary". All of the plurals you use are indeed valid English, except "ignoramus" -- my dictionary gives only "ignoramuses" as a plural, not "ignorami". (On the other hand, words like "synthesis" are only correctly pluralized in the classical fashion, not as English words.)
Personally, I consistently use "fora" and "vertices" as the plurals of "forum" and "vertex". However, "forums", "vertexes", and "octopuses" are also valid plural forms that I find in my dictionary. There's nothing wrong with either way of pluralizing -- that's why I said "you *could* just use the English plural" and not "you *should* just use the English plural".
I do find "octopi" a bit silly, and I prefer not to use it myself, because it doesn't make etymological sense. However, I didn't and wouldn't call it incorrect. It's very common that words change by false analogy, and it's impossible to maintain any sort of etymological purity in practice. I don't criticize anyone for using language in whatever way feels natural to them, even for that matter using nonstandard dialects or slang.
I'm pretty sure nothing I said implied that I felt I knew any more English than anyone else, and I never used the word "proper" or any comparable word (despite you putting it in quotation marks twice when responding to me). I'm a bit taken aback at the venomous tone of your response, since I'm pretty sure nothing I said denigrated anyone or anything. I imagine everyone here would appreciate it if in the future, you took the time to try giving people the benefit of the doubt instead of interpreting their posts as an attack.
Bang paths Posted Aug 25, 2011 19:34 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] I still had a bang-path address in 1991 - it was still the only reasonable way to get email into your house in those days. A lot of work was being done to impose ARPAnet-style addressing onto the uucp net by then, but bang paths were far from uncommon still.Of course, they were often hybrid monstrosities like host1!user%host2@host3 or some such.
Bang paths Posted Aug 27, 2011 18:02 UTC (Sat) by jone (guest, #62596) [Link]
IIRC funet.fi was internet connected but there was still a lot of UUCP store and forward back then .. BITNET was still around in a few countries until '96, but the internet didn't really surpass UUCP until '97 or so .. good graphic still up at:
http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/FUNET/history/internet/en/k...
Bang paths Posted Sep 1, 2011 9:32 UTC (Thu) by stevan (subscriber, #4342) [Link]
Maybe best to curb your nostalgia. As I recall, the complexity of bang paths was making X400 start to look attractive. Our big parent company at the time put a lot of pressure on us to go X400, which we resisted long enough for them to install SMTP-X400 gateways, and I still remember the relief felt at the time.
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 25, 2011 23:43 UTC (Thu) by Hausvib6 (guest, #70606) [Link]
The man had mentioned that it wouldn't be big but people didn't read his words correctly and started making it bigger and bigger by sending patches. Too many patches... it's been 20 years and he is still merging your patches. Poor soul.
Should me made into a sad drama movie or perhaps an action/thriller movie.
"This cancer has been growing for 20 years."
Cancer Posted Aug 26, 2011 0:12 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Cancer might be an apt choice of analogy. The HeLa cell line lives on, over sixty years after its host died, and now thrives in laboratories around the world, whether as the intended focus of an experiment or just because it grows really well in vitro and someone wasn't careful enough to eradicate it.
Linux seems to be no less controversial, and although it hasn't been around for sixty years yet it seems similarly adaptable and is thriving everywhere.
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 26, 2011 3:28 UTC (Fri) by shieldsd (subscriber, #20198) [Link]
Each time I read this post I am reminded of the charming combination of braggadocio and humor that characterizes Linus's skills as a project leader. Just the aside
(just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) says all you need to know.
thanks,
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 26, 2011 6:19 UTC (Fri) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link]
I had always wondered if that line was humor or naivete. ;)
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 26, 2011 8:03 UTC (Fri) by renox (subscriber, #23785) [Link]
Neither. I'm quite sure that Linus like everybody else at the time didn't expect Linux to become what it is now..
Absolutely... Posted Aug 26, 2011 10:38 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] He's honest here. He wanted "Unix for his PC" - and while GNU offered many things it lacked kernel (but it was already promised: GNU Manifesto explicitly says "an initial kernel exists but many more features are needed to emulate Unix") so after initial bumbling Linus adopted his "terminal emulater" to fullful this role. He never expected that Architecture Astronauts take over and instead of practical task to create working kernel project will be turned to playground for exciting (and mostly pointless) experiments - thus he expected full GNU system very soon and obviously in this case his "toy kernel" can only be a stop-gap solution. When said kernel never materialized and RMS started his Lignux(GNU/Linux) campaign... I think this is where his disdain for "large designs" comes from. P.S. Ironically enough RMS (as usual) was quite right here: GNU/Linux does have a meaning... today. You desktop is Linux and GNU/Linux, but your router is probably Linux yet not-exactly-GNU/Linux (it may include some GNU components besides kernel, but in general - it's different beast) while Android is Linux, but most defenitely not GNU/Linux... But since RMS started his campaign years in adavance and used wrong reasons (again: as usual for him) it become running joke instead of useful (and used!) form...
The problem with true visionnaires Posted Aug 27, 2011 16:57 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] It tends to happen: RMS is right and years before his time. That is why I respect the man so much. I learned the difference between GNU/Linux and bare Linux with my first busybox router back in 2007; now with android few people know that there is a Linux kernel under the hood. Ironic.
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Aug 31, 2011 15:39 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link]
I am glad it recognizes my hard disk, I do not know if I could find those advanced technology harddisks anywhere.
20th anniversary of the first Linux post Posted Sep 11, 2011 14:55 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
And What Hath Linus Wrought?
Well, lots of arguments over pronunciation, among other things. :-) (I always say that anyone who wants to give me shit over how it's pronounced has to pronounce it "leenoox", or shut the hell up.)
We're somewhere between Ghandicon 3 and 4, I think. I was beginning to think we might have made it to 4 ("then you win."), but then the Android-sniping kicked in.
We'll still make it.
Just to start a *side* argument, as much as I think that RMS is really out at the edge of reality in the purity of his beliefs in free software, you *need* people out at the edge, to give the Masses In The Middle room to lean but not fall over... and I *firmly* believe that had Linus *not* chosen the GPL for the kernel -- a decision that's trickled down into *most* of the Linux software and distributions we see these days -- that we would not be having this conversation today... nor would we have this venue in which *to* have it.
So I salute RMS in addition to Linux. Thanks, guys.
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