LWN Does Year in Review for Linux

HeUnique was too busy to post, but pointed out LWN's Timeline of 1999 for Linux. Quite a ride over the last year - complete with lots of images and historical markers. It's broken into months or the whole year. This is version .8 - 1.0 will be out after the end of the year.

when do we make the 'time capsule'?

[kerouac]

First thing that i'll put in it is Linus' initial
post to the minix news group.

Hmmm

[Ravagin]

Well, at least we can expect version 1.0 to be Y2K-comp. :)
Seriously, I think what'll be even more interesting is next year's timeline. With the rate at which linux has been growing and evolving (or devolving, depending on your point of view), who knows what next year holds?
Well, the end of the world, for one thing...
BTW...nah, never mind.
===
-Ravagin

timelines

[KGBear]

I think 1999 was the year Linux became know, but 2000 will be the year it makes history. We can expect some very interesting developments, including a Linux vs Win2K showdown and probably the unveiling of MS's strategy against Linux.

Redhat 6.0?

[raskolnik]

Redhat 6.0 was released? when did this happen! why didn't anyone tell me! :P
"You should never have your best trousers on when you turn

microsoft

[mrbeaner]

What about the Microsoft windows timeline? come on, now there's some interesting reading for you! (or not)

Seattle Prophecy? :)

[MAXOMENOS]

Listed as one of the year's events is a series of April Fools jokes, including a fake news story where Anti-MS protesters rioted through the streets of Seattle [one.net]. And eight months later....

Conspiracy theories anyone?????

The Kulturwehrmacht [onelist.com]

Exposure to Public

[Super_Frosty]

The greatest thing to happen to Linux is all these Linux startups going IPO. When a company like VA Linux's stock goes up 500% in one day, and breaks a stock market record, it attracts a lot of attention. It's in the papers, and Joe Middleaged guy sees it. I mean, I'd never heard of VA Linux, but simply having the word "Linux" in its name made it have the most profitable IPO ever! I've resolved to buy into the next Linux IPO. I'm also going to delete Windoze and install Red Hat 6.0! Woo hoo!

Wow, what a productive year

[Energy Flow]

Wow, compare the '98 year to the '99 year. Look how much more stuff has happened in the linux community compared to 98! It's exciting to see this massive growth. Onward Linux!!

A world of CGI´s.

[Nicopa]

This is not completelly related with the timeline, but... why now everything is a CGI? I can expect that from massive consumer products like, say, a Disney site... but people "in the community" should know that to properly build "the web" we need indexable and cacheable content.

Squid will not cache that timeline, so the 200 Linux users of a ISP will each download his own copy. Netscape won't probably cache it either, so you will need to download it again if you come back.

The pages will not be indexed, so if you make a query in Altavista with "+timeline +linux" you wont find the page.

I think there was a Slashdot article abaout this a short time ago, maybe we need some more until we learn.. =)

Note that you could still use a CGI and dont have all the problem I listed. Ask me how.. (and eeeevrybody will give you the same answers =) ).

Re:microsoft

[MAXOMENOS]

. . .

• 4/11/99: 10,192 bugs located so far. Fixed one; patch added more. New count is 10,197.
• 4/12/99: 10,197 bugs located so far. Fixed one; patch added more. New count is 10,214.
• 4/13/99: 10,214 bugs located so far. Fixed one; patch added more. New count is 10,222.
• 4/14/99: Treated the gang to a movie to achieve goal of getting through one day without causing further damage.
• 4/15/99: 10,222 bugs located so far. Fixed one; patch added more. New count is 10,378.
• 4/16/99: 10,378 bugs located so far. Fixed one; patch added more. New count is 10,387.
• 4/17/99: 10,387 bugs located so far. Fixed one; patch added more. New count is 10,402.

The Kulturwehrmacht [onelist.com]

ZDNet - hmmm.

[Signal 11]

They left out a critical detail:
The Jesse Berst Timeline!

January: "Leenucks?" -- Jesse Berst
March: "Linux will never amount to anything!"
May: "Linux might give Microsoft a run for it's money
July: "I always said Linux was a contender."
September: "Linux beats NT hands down."
November: "Go linux go!"

Shouldnt we be in Version .12

[xee]

'Cause .8 would be August. Y'know, "1.3 = 1 year from 1999 (period) March" i.o.w. March of 2000. In perl (and Perl) this is $ver = (localtime[5] - 1999) . "." . localtime[4];

Funniest Timeline Yet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heheheh!

This has got to be the funniest timeline yet! Remember when Posh and Becks got married? What about Sporty's duet with Eddy Van Halen, "Baby When You're Gone"?

Or how they split with Geri? And now Ginger Spice and that Ginger Geezer, Chris Evans? Imagine what the kids'll look like!!!

You can find out about all this and more at The Spice Girls Timeline [strathleigh.co.uk]

Re:A world of CGI´s.

[Inoshiro]

Well, jeez. My squid wasn't able to cache it, and it's already getting /.ed for its trouble, methinks. Perhaps a nice "Cache-friendly-Apache-HOWTO" or similar should be sent to them.

Cache now! [vancouver-webpages.com] campaign and the Squid [nlanr.net] proxy server make my LAN life easier. IJB latches onto Squid quickly & easily, so less spam, more content, and lots of calamari for all!
---

All you need to know

[Zico]

• 1975: Founded by a young geek named Bill Gates.
• December 21, 1999: Ended the trading day with a record market cap of 581 billion dollars.

Cheers,
[e-mail]

I'm not sure IPOs were necessarily good...

[SilverSeed]

Are you sure it's "the greatest thing"? Sure there's exposure for Linux now, and we are feeling vindicated finally, but now every idiot who can watch CNN is also touting the wonders of Linux without really understanding anything at all.

And not to mention that Corel's stock is skyrocketing because of CorelLinux, despite the fact that 98% of their business has nothing to do with Linux.

All the IPOs just seem to be creating hype, and I'm not sure it's all good hype... yes, the defeat-Microsoft-in-your-face-Bill-Gates hype is nice, but still...

Selebrity worship?

[Compuser]

This timeline includes a bunch of events, like people winning
awards or producing offsprings. They are prominent people and
those are all good things, but what does it have to do with Linux?

Creative Labs

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cool to see Creative Labs pull a 180.
Take a look at the time line:

(January 9) Creative Labs says there will be
no SB Live driver for Linux. From their
note: "Creative has no plans of releasing its
intellectual property to the general
public."

(January 12) Creative Labs advertises for a
Linux driver writer to produce an SB Live
driver (job posting here).

(May) Creative Technologies releases a beta SB
Live driver. The driver proves problematic,
but, due to its closed-source nature, can not
be fixed.

(November) Creative Technology releases a
driver for its SB Live card - under the
GPL.

btw, the opensource driver is excellent, no
problems here!

Bias

[Wonko42]

Did anyone else notice the somewhat biased nature of the timeline? Obviously this was put together by someone who didn't feel comfortable with marking down some of Linux's losses as well as its gains.

It's biased almost to the point of being propaganda, even. Almost every reference to Microsoft is either exaggerated against the company or in some way worded so as to make Linux appear superior. Sure, in some cases this is fact, but in others, not so much. I noticed specifically that the blurb about the first Mindcraft benchmarks was quite exaggerated and even factually inaccurate. And where was the mention of the results of the SECOND Mindcraft tests? There was mention of the ANNOUNCEMENT of the tests, but nothing about the results, which proved that the original tests were correct.

I'm all for Linux enthusiasm, but Linux propaganda just starts to worry me a bit.

--

Re:Seattle Prophecy? :)

[Wah]

hmmm, the riots were only started by a few people...

(disclaimer: I was not in Seattle (physically))

Mindcraft II is in there.

[Sam Ruby]

May, 1999
Mindcraft tries again, and issues this call for an "open benchmark" to retry its NT-vs.-Linux tests. This time, people who know something about Linux will be allowed to participate

June, 1999
The Mindcraft benchmark is rerun with Linux experts present. NT still wins; Linux comes out with set of things to fix. Many of the fixes happen within a few weeks.

Think '99 was hot for Linux? 2000 will be hotter

[Bill Henning]

Just watch 2000; Linux will start eating away at the desktop.

Re:Shouldnt we be in Version .12

[Inoshiro]

Ack
You failed grade 6 math, didn't ye?

.8 > .12

If we were in .12, I'd expect it'd be February 13th right now (365*.12).
---

Re:when do we make the 'time capsule'?

[aphr0]

Why not post it here? I'm interested in seeing what he said.

Re:ZDNet - hmmm.

[daviddennis]

Although that was surely an unforgettable experience to live through, wasn't it last year's?

I seem to remember they did exactly that in last year's LWN.

D

----

Re:Bias

[reactionary]

This is a Linux Information Resource, so I'd expect some Linux bias. However, there was little exaggeration or mudslinging in the timeline. The Mozilla Project's loss of Zawicki, security holes, and "kernel panics" (lack of ISDN support, etc.) were all mentioned -- these were certainly setbacks to the Open Source movement.

I think that you any propaganda you saw is benign. I found this timeline to be both entertaining and informative. Perhaps the tinting on your spectacles is too dark.

By the way, the results of the second test were mentioned:

The Mindcraft benchmark is rerun with Linux experts present. NT still wins; Linux comes out with set of things to fix. Many of the fixes happen within a few weeks.

Re:question

[evilphish]

For me the most significant happening was the debates over gnome vs kde that is what got me interested and even though I run window maker. Those two groups are going to spearhead the desktop inititive(!?sp)

Congratulations IBM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone notice how much IBM was in Linux news this year (and in this timeline)?
I didn't count or anything, but it seemed like more than any other "non-linux company" (i.e. Red Hat et. al don't count ;)
I'm really impressed with the way that ol' dinosaur has embraced the linux community despite a few slip ups (like the mentioned laptop thing).
They've still got some work to do (like stop boasting about having the most software patents of any company in the world year after year), but I really hope some of the other traditional big guns are watching and learning!
Keep it up IBM!

Re:Shouldnt we be in Version .12

[maxume]

If we were in .12, I'd expect it'd be February 13th right now (365*.12).

Of couse, with that reasoning, it would be Nov 15...

Re:when do we make the 'time capsule'?

[mduell]

Here is the post he made: (I got it out of the RHAT 5.2 manual)

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.

Mark Duell

Re:A world of CGI´s.

[Corbet]

Actually, there's no CGI involved here; it's done with PHP. I'll look at getting a last-modified header in there, which may help with caching.

It's PHP mostly to accommodate both the monthly and "one big page" views. Plus it makes a lot of other things easy...

One of the quotes

[reptilian]

Linux pushed Microsoft into the third phase. Suddenly we were able to see the emperor clearly, and we could see that he had no clothes. Nothing that Microsoft says seems believable any more. An operating system that cannot perform properly is not acceptable any longer. We have a choice. For years, we accepted what we could not change. But change is easy now. The finery the emperor told us he was wearing is missing. The emperor has no clothes.
-- Al Fasoldt, Technofile.

This guy is a tech journalist for a local newspaper where I am (Syracuse NY). I remember reading some of his stuff about a year ago; all windows-oriented, usually directed to an audience of clueless users. I read this quote, saw his name, and thought 'wait, this guy is hyping linux?' I checked the URL and yep, sure enough he's the good old Al Fasoldt I know and never really loved. I knew he played with linux at least, since he's posted in the twcny.rr.linux newsgroup more than once, but all I can say is, wow. If linux had that much influence over this journalist, what's stopping the rest of the them?

I really liked the timeline, though some of it can't be right. I'm almost positive that Linus getting his doctorate wasn't way back in may, because I don't think I even read slashdot back in may, though I could be wrong. Maybe it was just slashdot getting an old story, but if it were, I would definitely remember the ACs bitching about it. Anyway, I learned quite a bit, like ESR speaking at microsoft. Weird.

Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.

Re:A world of CGI´s.

[Nicopa]

But you can script thing in order to generate static files only once. e.g. just using a makefile and m4.

Anyway, to have the pages cached you need:

• Avoid the ? character, use the "path info" (foo.cgi/path/info). Caches usually are configured to not cacheing urls that contain ?s.
• Provide a content-length. This one might be a little tricky.
• Provide a last-modified header (the easier one).

Re:Bias

[jkorty]

Strange. I noticed the opposite. Did you miss those deprecating quotes in the sidebars?

Not likely, Mr. Henning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently Linux-as-desktop-OS is poised to capture nothing in the way of a applications niche...& it's aimed at no practical target. It seems as though Linux ppl have unconsciously settled on dethroning MS-Win9x/Office as their all-or-nothing goal in life. In doing so, they have almost totally ignored other, much more winnable markets. Linux will become competitive with Win9x in the Office space when MSOffice is ported to Linux --and everyone knows that's just around the corner... Other areas where Linux could have sneaked in some this year have seen little real progress. DTP and design/prepress are about where they were in Q1.99. Yeah, there is a beta for Adobe Framemaker but does it add anything that wasn't possible through already existing Unix apps like (K)Lyx? and pdf converters? You know, it's not exactly the hottest product in Adobe's lineup. Did our darling Gimp get better? No, not yet: 1.1 is an unusable developers' preview and 1.04 is absolutely bletcherous from UI standpoint, leaving aside the color management issue. What Linux should have won was initial support for apps like Photoshop, Quark, Shockwave/Director. Why didn't it? Well, look at the infrastructuural issues: while on the one hand Xwindows is just fine for 2d graphics --and that might lead you to believe Linux would naturally make a move here if anywhere in the desktop world-- on the other hand, printer and scanner support is still --why not say it?-- incredibly poor, bordering on nonexistent. Contributing device drivers for scanners and printers just isn't sexy enough to attract attention from many OSS-developers, not in the necessary strength & numbers anyway. Users were too preoccupied with other stuff to voice compelling demand for this critical hardware support. So currently it lags --really lags! you can slide without UDMA/ata66 and USB support for a while, but scanner and printer non-support is a killer for anything having to do with serious document/image creation. Any agency designer needs the scanner support --the Umax, the Epson, Agfa current products are basically MIA, and the freelancer working at home with his/her Epson PhotoEX for comps is still out of luck with Linux printer support

If Linux is to break out of its niche as a server OS and geektoy, Redhat, & VA need to join Corel in the move to get serious about the desktop and get apps and the hardware support needed for those apps.

Maybe Redhat should buy a good chunk of Adobe? Hell, they currently outweigh Adobe by $10billion. Adobe isn't growing much but they do have positive cash-flow, and with their near monopoly position (in their core market) owning Adobe would give Redhat a certain bargaining power in the arena of hardware vendor support that it currently lacks.

Re:I'm not sure IPOs were necessarily good...

[seaportcasino]

"? Sure there's exposure for Linux now, and we are feeling vindicated finally, but now every idiot who can watch CNN is also touting the wonders of Linux without really understanding anything at all.

It's this kind of elitist view of Linux that hurts Linux. We need to get out of the mentality that there is a 'them' and an 'us'. I would argue that anyone capable of watching CNN ought to be a potential candidate to use Linux. And if your a programmer helping out on Linux then your job isn't done until your grandmother can use linux.

The day your grandmother starts surfing the web and getting her email on Linux is the day Microsoft becomes a footnote in the annuals of software history, and 'we', together, both the most advanced coders and hackers along with the most neophyte users, will move into a more enlightned, richer software future.

Here's the link

[J. J. Ramsey]

Interestingly enough, it's from kde.org's "Food for Thought" section. Go here. [kde.org]

Re:Bias

[Wonko42]

Ah...guess I missed that then. Doh. I take it back. :P

--

Grossest understatement/misstatement of the year

[/]

Under march [lwn.net], you'll be reminded of Eric S Raymond's "Take My Job, Please" [netaxs.com] essay fiasco. If you go and reread it, as I did, you'll notice the following text at the bottom as one of the qualifications ESR said was necessary to have his job:

"You'll need to be financially secure enough not to need to have a regular job. (This one will give you some perks but no pay.)"

Especially not $36 million [slashdot.org]. No sir, I wouldn't call that pay. That one's definitely a perk.

Mindcraft redux

[SurfsUp]

Check out the excellent c't benchmark showdown [heise.de]. It shows that in one configuration (two fast ethernet cards in the same machine, serving static pages) NT can truly outperform Linux, but that in all the realistic configurations tested Linux beats NT, usually by a wide margin.

Naturally something has to be done about that one case where NT sneaks ahead, right?

Re:Creative Labs

[CoughDropAddict]

Their stance on the issue earlier on was so frustrating:

Creative has no plans of releasing its
intellectual property to the general
public. We have spent many years and many
millions of dollars developing the EMU10K1 audio processor, and we do not intent
to release it.
...
Frankly, their is SO much false information in the newsgroups that they have
actually SLOWED the release of information to the public. Their was one joker
who said he had our internal spec, and that he was going to develop a driver
independantly of us. That caused a COMPLETE shutdown of my Linux development
for about the last 6 months while we did an internal investigation to find the
leak.

I read this and just shook my head. They're sitting here making absolutely sure no one has their holy internal spec, making sure no one will come and steal their amazing ideas... Don't you get it Creative? NO ONE IS GOING TO BUY YOUR PRODUCTS IF THEY CAN'T USE THEM!!

Linux on the Desktop

[CoughDropAddict]

I think the biggest accomplishment for Linux when it comes to the desktop can be seen by comparing screenshots of the default X install of Redhat 5.1 (a bare-bones fvwm, very daunting to the beginner) vs 6.0 (KDE).

That alone is a huge accomplishment.

Re:One of the quotes

[EricWright]

"I'm almost positive that Linus getting his doctorate wasn't way back in may"

You're right. They *announced* it in May. He was *awarded* the degree in Sept or Oct (too lazy to check).

Eric

Re:ZDNet - hmmm.

[Signal 11]

I looked back through the archives, and indeed - they did just that. On further digging, he did the same thing this year. But the quotes were different. "Linux will never go mainstream", and "Don't get me wrong, I'm right behind you guys"...

Re:Shouldnt we be in Version .12

[xee]

Well, smart(er) ass, I was going by the Software Versioning Decimal System. Have you ever seen a program where version 3.11 came before version 3.4? Redhat 6.0 uses kernel 2.2.5. Redhat 6.1 uses 2.2.12. Try telling me that 2.2.5 came after 2.2.12!