According to the wikipedia The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in the 1960s and first released in 1970. Its wide availability and portability meant that it was widely adopted, copied and modified by academic institutions and businesses, with its design being influential on authors of other systems.
Fig 1: Richard Stallman (founder of the GNU project)
The GNU Project, started in 1984 by Richard Stallman, had the goal of creating a “complete Unix-compatible software system” composed entirely of free software. The next year Stallman created the Free Software Foundation and wrote the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) in 1989.
Fig 2: Linus Torvalds (author of the Linux kernel)
By the early 1990s, many of the programs required in an operating system (such as libraries, compilers, text editors, a Unix shell, and a windowing system) were completed, although low-level elements such as device drivers, daemons, and the kernel were stalled and incomplete.Linus Torvalds has said that if the GNU kernel had been available at the time (1991), he would not have decided to write his own.
Current Development
Torvalds continues to direct the development of the kernel. Stallman heads the Free Software Foundation, which in turn supports the GNU components. Finally, individuals and corporations develop third-party non-GNU components. These third-party components comprise a vast body of work and may include both kernel modules and user applications and libraries. Linux vendors and communities combine and distribute the kernel, GNU components, and non-GNU components, with additional package management software in the form of Linux distributions.
For the 2.6.29 release only, the kernel’s mascot, a penguin named Tux, was temporarily replaced by Tuz in order to highlight efforts to save the Tasmanian Devil from extinction.
Evolution of Linux
1969– Unix and C Programming Langage. — ken Thompson and Deniss Ritche
1978 — Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) developed — Bill Joy
1983 — Free Software Foundtion GNU/GPL — Richard Stallman
1991 — Linux Launched — Linus Torvalds
1995 — Apache Web Server Released — Brian Behlendorf
1998 — Netscape Launched as Open Source.
1999 — Red Hat — Michael Tiemann 2000 — OpenOffice — Danese Coper
2004 — Ubuntu — Coder name – Warty Warthog
