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[Old 1997 story] The Greatest OS That (N)ever Was
(www.wired.com)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
Edit: my below comment was actually wrong. They actually do use git.
Thanks for sharing. What I find most interesting is that Linus is still using the same email-based software development methods for the kernel while the rest of the software engineering world has evolved to use his other invention, git, for that. I’m kind of second-hand embarrassed for those geniuses who have yet to adopt proper version control for (what I’d argue is) the most important project in the computing world.
Here’s a far more nuanced explanation from Spore’s reply to this comment :
Honestly I'm surprised that so many people don't know how git can be used without those repository hosting sites. That's one way to use it, not the only way. And it's not even the way it was originally designed for.
Checkout git format-patch.
I, for one, was quite ignorant of that fact.
I'm not so surprised anymore. I'm self-taught using open-source software projects for guidance. But not everyone learns like that. For example in the commercial software dev world, having patches easy to apply with minimum tooling isn't usually a priority (for better or worse).
This is actually a little story I had half written down; your comment prompted me to finish it. Thanks! https://www.srcbeat.com/2023/11/git-email/