"It was 10 years ago this month that a 21-year-old
Linus Torvalds sent an e-mail to the open-source software community
saying an experimental version of the Linux kernel, the core
technology that would end up embodied in Linux operating systems,
was up and running.
"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big
and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones," Torvalds wrote
in an e-mail to a discussion group that focused on the Unix variant
Minix. "This has been brewing since April, and is starting to get
ready."
Torvalds posted version 0.01 of the kernel the following month.
While Linux lacked some of the features and big-name backing of
other operating systems, it had a giant appeal--those who adopted
it could tailor it as they saw fit."
