I’ve been reading through the many essays of Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, a compilation of writings from different sources dealing with subjects pertinent to the Open Source Initiative. Though I haven’t read them all yet, I have read Appendix A, which is an email thread on the comp.os.minix newsgroup from early 1992; this is the famous (infamous?) debate between Linux Torvalds and Andrew Tanenbaum on microkernel VS monolithic kernel.

It has been difficult for me to have perspective on the GNU project in terms of how it was viewed in the early 90’s. I was in eighth grade in 1992 — the year of the aforementioned debate — and the only exposure I had had to computers and programming at that point was minimal experience with programming in TI Basic when I was younger — maybe, six to eight years old. My father, a pharmacist, had been an amateur programmer at that time and had introduced me to the magic of typing on keys and then having the screen do what you typed. I wrote programs to print my name in big letters and change the colors on the screen in some rhythmic pattern, a small feat for the languages of today but in 1985, that was a big deal for me.

But I digress. It was during this time period, and shortly afterward that GNU really started to become a powerhouse. But I didn’t know that then, I didn’t know anything about it then because I was a kid. And later I drifted away from programming and computers altogether, not to pick it up again until more than a decade later, much after the monumental failure of the GNU HURD.

So it is with this mindset that I view Linux, GNU, FSF, and Open Source today. It’s similar to when some woman looks at Tom Jones and swoons, and I look at Tom Jones and see a fat guy in a purple suit, sweating like a pig. She remembers Tom Jones from way back when, and I have no frame of reference other than the present.

While reading Appendix A, which is an actual historical email thread and not just a someone’s account of it, I started to realize how the GNU OS was viewed at the time. This is something I probably never would have realized without this type of historical document, and it encourages me to seek out more of this type of thing to gain an even better perspective.

I decided to pull out a bunch of references to GNU from the text and include them here. I recommend reading the whole thread in its entirety; the references here are obviously taken out of context, but my intention is to include as much of the surrounding context as I think necessary to convey the idea of the passage without totally fucking it up. So here goes.

Andy Tannenbaum:

Don’t get me wrong, I am not unhappy with LINUX. It will get all the people
who want to turn MINIX in BSD UNIX off my back. But in all honesty, I would
suggest that people who want a **MODERN** “free” OS look around for a
microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that.

Linus Torvalds:

True, linux is monolithic, and I agree that microkernels are nicer. With
a less argumentative subject, I’d probably have agreed with most of what
you said. From a theoretical (and aesthetical) standpoint linux looses.
If the GNU kernel had been ready last spring, I’d not have bothered to
even start my project: the fact is that it wasn’t and still isn’t. Linux
wins heavily on points of being available now.

Andy Tannenbaum:

Making software free, but only for folks with enough money
to buy first class hardware is an interesting concept.
Of course 5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now
everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5.

Randy Burns:

My own sense is that even if Linux is simply a stopgap
measure to let us all run GNU software, it is still worthwhile to have a
a finely tuned kernel for the most numerous architecture presently in
existance.

Ricard Tobin:

You’ll be rid of most of us when BSD-detox or GNU
comes out, which should happen in the next few months (yeah, right).

Doug Graham:

Well, there are no other choices that I’m aware of at the moment. But
when GNU OS comes out, I’ll very likely jump ship again.

Charles Hedrick:

It’s possible that Linux will be overtaken by Gnu or a free BSD.

Theodore Ts’o:

I am aware of the benefits of a micro kernel approach. However, the
fact remains that Linux is here, and GNU isn’t — and people have been
working on Hurd for a lot longer than Linus has been working on Linux.