If you’re wondering what to do in the Isle of Man this Thursday while the roads are closed, how about popping down to the Claremont Hotel at 18:00 (for 18:30) to join the BCS in a talk about the history of Linux. Here’s what it’s about:
Looking back from the pre-history of Linux, and the events that would lead up to the first public announcement of the Linux kernel in 1991, up until the present day – the events that shaped this operating system, and how it would develop. Linux is the first major and undoubtedly most prominent success of the “internet bazaar†style of collaboration and development. Many notable accidents of computing history have made Linux possible – from AT&T’s policies in the 1980s over Unix that resulted in the birth of the Free Software Foundation, as well as one of Britain’s least successful personal computers. Along the way, Linux has garnered criticism from academics and praise from corporations, to attempts at destruction from some corporations, and adoption by academics. Today, Linux is still an ongoing project – like many major efforts in software, development is a never ending task with new concepts being applied in areas thought to be mundane and settled, such as the filesystem and scheduler. To understand why Linux is where it is today, the talk will cover the history and events surrounding this operating system, from the pre-history of 1969 up to the present day.
Should be a great talk. More details on the BCS website