The Story of Linux: Commemorating 20 Years of the Linux Operating System

Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Linux with us. Watch the Story of Linux to remember - or learn for the first time - how Linux disrupted a market and has begun to change the world. Do you see yourself in its story?

The Story of Linux (On the occasion of its 20th Anniversary)

Our story begins 20 years ago

Boris Yeltsin was sworn into office, Jay Leno replaced Johny Carson on the Tonight Show

and cell phones where really, really big.

It was August of 1991 and a 20 year old computer science student named Linus Torvalds sat down at his

computer in Helsinki to post what is now one of the most famous entries in computing history.

"Hello everybody out there... I'm doing a (free) operating system

(just a hobby, won't be anything big and professional like gnu) …

it probably will never support anything other than AT-hard disks since that's all I have"

Well, word of Linus' open source project soon spread around the globe

and developers from all over contributed their code.

Linus named his OS kernel Linux and chose a penguin as its mascot

after a little incident at the zoo.

He soon made a very important decision that would shape Linux's future, just as much as the technology

He chose the GPL license, created by a visionary named Richard Stallman.

The Linux kernel, along with the GPL license and other GNU components revolutionized the computing industry

with a few very simple, yet very important freedoms:

The freedom to use the software for any purpose.

The freedom to change the software to suit your needs.

The freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and

the freedom to share the changes you've made.

These radical ideas fueled its spread around the world

and somewhat paradoxically its rise from a hobbyist experiment to the foundation of a large and thriving

commercial ecosystem.

Companies built businesses around Linux.

In 1999 Red Hat's stock tripled as it became the first Linux company to go public.

That same year IBM spent a billion dollars to improve and advertise Linux.

[Background: "Does he have a name?" "His name is Linux"]

Soon Linux was knocking out industry heavy weights, and fueling the rise of the internet with its Free

Software. In short: Linux revolutionized computing.

But whenever something is this disruptive there's bound to be competitive crossfire.

But Linux not only survived, it thrived.

Today the kernel development community numbers in the thousands, with hundreds of companies

collaborating on Linux development.

Every three months another version of Linux is released.

So, where is Linux today? Running in 75% of stock exchanges worldwide and

powering the servers that deliver Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Google.

You use Linux literally every time you surf the Internet.

It's in your phone, in your TV, running 95% of supercomputers and

in many of the devices you use every day. Linux is everywhere.

And the Helsinki-based promgrammer who started it all?

He orchestrates this worldwide army of developers from his home office in Portland, Oregon

as a Fellow at the Linux Foundation.

As we celebrate 20 years of Linux, we can all see ourselves in its story.

Thank you for being a part of its first 20 years.