See also: last week's Linux History page.

This week in Linux history

The San Francisco Chronicle covered an upcoming SVLUG meeting where Linus was due to speak:

Go, tell these software socialists to take their radical notions of cooperative development and free code back to Europe. Americans demand the right to pay for programs that dominate markets and make entrepreneurs filthy rich. We won't stand still while some Finnish fellow subverts the most profitable industry in history!

The company (then) called VA Research announced that its first (and, seemingly, last) "Excellence in Open Source Software Award" would be given to Linus Torvalds at the above-mentioned SVLUG meeting. The announcement was posted by Sam Ockman, who was soon to head off and found Penguin Computing.

Two years ago (March 4, 1999 LWN): the LWN weekly edition was written on the exhibit floor at the first LinuxWorld. We mean that literally - your editor sat on the floor working from a laptop plugged into a network port kindly provided by the Linuxcare folks.

The first LinuxWorld Conference and Expo was a watershed event. It was the first real "trade show," and it gave notice that all these companies were serious. It was loud, glitzy, commercial, and, at times, obnoxious. It became clear that Linux had entered the commercial world.

One of the more interesting events there was a panel session with Eric Raymond, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, and Larry Wall. Therein was heard the classic exchange which defines how different people see free (or "open source") software:

Eric: I want to live in a world where software doesn't suck.

Richard: Any software that isn't free sucks.

Linus: I'm interested in free beer.

Two years later, few people have found much to add to that debate.

Remember Microsoft's Ed Muth?

"I find it hard to believe that some of the best computer scientists in the world will want to do their work for free," he said. "Without a long-term technical road map, without multimillion-dollar test labs, someone wants me to believe these visionary programmers and developers will want to do the best work of their lives and then give it away. I do not believe in that vision of the future."

We don't hear much from old Ed any more...

Debian 2.1 had been scheduled to be released during LinuxWorld. Unfortunately, a couple of problems turned up with the distribution. Rather than release a distribution with known bugs, Debian chose to pass up the opportunity for a LinuxWorld release and fix the problems.

VA Research (now VA Linux Systems) bought the linux.com domain name for a great deal of money.

One year ago (March 2, 2000 LWN): Amazon.com, not content with its "one-click" patent, announced a patent on its affiliate program as well.

Both Caldera Systems and Linuxcare filed amended IPO filings, appearing to be on track as the next set of hot Linux IPOs. Caldera claimed it wsa going for $7-9 per share (it actually got $14) Linuxcare was shooting for $13-15, but, of course, never went public at all.

LWN pointed out that Linux stocks weren't always a good buy - little did we know how right we were... Here's a couple of other comments, inspired by VA Linux System's second quarter results:

The turn of events can be seen as both a possible harbinger of circumspection about the future of the Linux operating system among investors, as well a cautionary example of market excess.
-- News.com, on how VA's stock price had dropped to a mere $106/share.

At about 225 times sales and 30 times book value, this baby's still got plenty of room to fall. If you bought the company at the IPO on speculation that Linux would stay hot, it's high time to reconsider.
-- The Motley Fool got it right.

Turbolinux replaced Cliff Miller as President - the first step toward removing him from the company entirely.

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