History of Linux and the Linux Picnic

The Picnic

The Linux picnic is an annual tradition that has been going on since 2001. The original idea, called Linux10, was a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Linux. We had a big picnic in Sunnyvale, CA, and Linux fans around the world staged other events to mark the anniversary. Since then, we have continued to hold the picnic event every year around that time.

The original Linux10 picnic was held on August 25, 2001, which happened to fall on a Saturday. The next year, we moved it a week earlier to August 17 so that attendees of the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco could come to the picnic. We followed the same plan in 2003 and 2004, but in 2005 we had to move it to Sunday because the park was already booked on Saturday.

Organizers of celebrations in other locations may want to to use a date closer to August 25 since they won’t have the LinuxWorld Expo in their area, and to avoid a schedule conflict with the Sunnyvale picnic.

Linux History

We chose August 25 as the anniversary date of Linux because that was the date in 1991 when Linus Torvalds posted an article in comp.os.minix saying his new experimental kernel was running bash and gcc, and he was going to post the source code soon. Though it’s impossible to pick a given day that Linux started, this is generally accepted as when the project reached critical mass. This was also the message that got others besides Linus interested in the project.

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello everybody out there using minix -

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).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-) .

Well, never say never…

Links to Linux history pages

About Linux

• Wikipedia entry on Linux
• Linux History at Linux International
• “Linux is obsolete”, January 29, 1992 by the first detractor of Linux: Professor Tannenbaum, author of Minix

Old versions of Linux

• Linux 0.01 kernel sources, September 1991
• All Linux kernel releases from 0.01 to current

Tux the Penguin

• Tux the Penguin
• A Complete History of Tux - so Far. by Steve Baker - BAD

The Linux Trademark suit (1996-1997)

Though this has been tried again in other countries, the definitive case over the trademark on “Linux” happenned after an individual named William R Della Croce, Jr of Massachussets fraudulently trademarked the name “Linux”, claiming he had made the first use of the name in 1994. Nobody noticed until he sent threatening letters to WGS of Aurora, CO (Linux Mall), Yggdrasil of San Jose, CA (first maker of a Linux distribution on CD) and others. The Linux community provided ample evidence that this was not true. The resulting lawsuit was settled with the trademark being assigned to Linus Torvalds.

• “Is Linux trademarked?”, Linux Journal, Nov 1996
• “Petition to Cancel Filed Against Linux Trademark”, Linux Gazette, Jan 1997
• “Action Taken on Linux Trademark”, Linux Journal, Mar 1997
• “Linux Trademark Dispute”, Linux Journal, Aug 1997
• “Ownership of Linux Trademark Resolved”, Linux Journal, Nov 1997

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