Happy Birthday Linux, Thanks for All the Bits 1

Twenty years ago today, Linus Torvalds posted a message to the Usenet group, comp.os.minix, announcing his decision to design an operating system. Here’s a snippet from the text of his post:

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

Linux has a minimal market share in home computing (meaning laptops and desktops); this frustrates Linux users, who tend to have an evangelical streak.

In the world of cell phones, web servers, embedded devices, Linux is a major player. If you have a DVR or flat screen TV, it is likely powered by Linux. If you ever use Google to search the web, you use Linux. There’s a good chance that the websites you surf run on Linux servers.

The small presence in the home computer market exists not because Linux is mysterious, geeky, and difficult (as it was ten years ago), but rather because persons cannot easily purchase a computer with Linux installed–and Microsoft intends to keep it that way; meanwhile, Apple is intent on locking users into its walled orchard, away from the Big Wide World.

Nor, for that matter, are Linux users the supercilious geekier-than-thou elitists of legend; generally, they are quite willing to share their good fortune with Windows and Mac users others less fortunate than they.

If persons could play with Linux computers in the store display, they would realize that Linx is not an esoteric spell requiring mysterious incantations to invoke the computer fairies, but instead that, though it is different under the hood, it is no more difficult than what they are used to.

Unless your want to track down one of the very few independent dealers who sell OEM Linux computers, such as Zareason or System76, the only way to get Linux is to install it yourself, which is generally quite easy, because Linux developers know that their installation programs are likely to be used by novices and design them accordingly.

But most persons have never installed an operating system on a computer; the prospect intimidates them.

They are going to use what came with the box, continuing to pay the Microsoft or Apple and other software license fees rolled into the sales price and to buy expensive software at Staples or Best Buy while ignoring the free alternatives that commonly work as well as or better than the paid stuff (notable exceptions are certain industrial and business applications, such as CAD and accounting software, and high-end proprietary games).

As a developer, Linus Torvalds is a genius. As a prophet, not so much.