At 2004-06-29T155958+1200, Jim Cheetham wrote:and didn't want to purchase Minix. He started to write what became
That's not correct. Torvalds was running Minix and GNU tools,
Indeed - thanks for the clarification. I was running from memory - there was some good reason to not hack Minix, and I thought it was the purchase - obviously as he was using it at the time that's wrong.
What I can't find mention of via google/wikipedia is the original motivation, which I'm sure I've read. Perhaps it was in print somewhere. Most likely in Just for Fun ...
Anyway, if anyone is seriously interested in the history, I suggest you get it from a reliable source rather than second-hand via a mailing list. Free as in Freedom and Just for Fun cover the lives of Stallman (FSF/GNU) and Torvalds (Linux) respectively, and much of the history is available via Google Groups if you've got the time to find it.
Sure, but I was actually just trying to expand on "what's GNU and why is it associated with Linux?". And what's the effective difference between Google Groups (which used to be called Usenet, I seem to remember) and mailing lists anyway?
-jim
