[X Newbies] he said, she said.

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Friday, Jul 25, 2003, at 10:46 Canada/Eastern, Vincent Cayenne wrote:

> At 10:02 AM -0400 7/25/03, Florin Alexander Neumann wrote:

>> To say that "Linux" is a contraction of "Linus' Minix" means you're 
>> already taken sides, and it's probably incorrect as well.

> And this apart from your completely baseless intimation that I have 
> "taken sides" - in my original post, there was absolutely no 
> commentary on my part, nor any material other than quotes with, I 
> felt, fair context. And of course the links themselves. Or did I miss 
> the part where you didn't mean me?

Indeed, you missed it. Since I was referring to material you quoted, my 
remark concerned the author of that material, not you. I clearly 
indicated that by double quotes. They indicated that my comments were 
about material quoted, not written, by you.

> Please revisit the links. The background for the idea that the 
> impetus/inspiration was Minix is in Linus' notes and postings during 
> the 0.x phase of Linux' formulation.

Impetus or inspiration is one thing. The origin of the name is another. 
The very material you quote says:

>> [...] I'd like any feedback on
>> things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat 
>> [...]

It's perfectly natural for Linux to resemble Minix "somewhat" -- both 
are more or less based on Unix. Linux made its first inroads among 
users of Minix for good reasons: both systems originated in academia, 
were designed to run on cheap machines, and provided the source code. 
Eventually, a controversy developed within the Minix community on the 
relative merits of the two operating systems. According to one legend, 
the impetus to develop Linux came to Torvalds during a lecture at the 
University of Helsinki in which a professor was unable to get a Minix 
machine going; the professor disparaged the 'brain-dead' design of 
Minix and exclaimed that someone should write an OS just to show that 
'weenie from Amsterdam' how things should really be done. The 
counter-legend claims that Torvalds actually only re-wrote parts of 
Minix to improve it; to claim that "Linux" stands for "Linus' Minix" is 
really to take this view.

Minix's author, Dr Tanenbaum, clearly distinguishes between Minix and 
Linux (from a debate in early 1992 on the comp.os.minix newsgroup, 
widely available on the 'net):

> MINIX is a microkernel-based system. [...] LINUX is a monolithic style 
> system.

And Torvalds' feelings are made clear in the same forum:

> [...] your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of 
> a
> good excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix. I can only hope 
> (and
> assume) that Amoeba doesn't suck like minix does. [...]

So much for Linux meaning "Linus' Minix".

At any rate, this is clearly irrelevant to most subscribers to this 
list, and I don't intend to carry it any further.

f