
It was on 25 August 1991 when Linus Torvalds sent out this iconic email and would go on to change the world:
Hello everybody out there using minix-
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix; as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-sytem due to practical reasons)among other things.
I've currently ported bash (1.08) an gcc (1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that i'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)
But it wasn't until 17 September 1991 when he did his first source release or 5 October 1991 when he issued a call for contributors. But regardless, 25 August is tend to be considered the birthday/anniversary of Linux.
26 years later, Linux 4.13 is right around the corner and the code-base has grown to well over 20 million lines of code.
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