Linux Journal: Linux and Other Software Projects

“Last week, I talked about how UNIX and Minix had influenced
Linus’ initial work. These operating systems set the initial
direction, but they were not the only influence. Others
include The GNU project of the Free Software Foundation (FSF),
UNIX-like code developed at UC Berkeley, and the IEEE’s POSIX
standard. In addition, the availability of powerful and inexpensive
computer hardware certainly helped set the direction….”

“The FSF’s GNU project was started in order to make a free,
UNIX-like operating system, complete with a full set of development
tools and utility programs. While the operating system itself (the
HURD) had never really made it, the related tools have made a
significant contribution, first to the UNIX area itself and then to
Linux….”

“Besides the GNU utilities, a large set of utility programs were
developed at the University of California at Berkeley. Many of
these utilities were initially based on UNIX code from AT&T,
but the most recent release of those programs is free of the
AT&T code. This made it possible to include these programs with
Linux distributions as well. There are many programs, but the most
obvious are the Berkeley print spooling system and the sendmail
mail transfer agent.”

Complete
Story