See also: last week's Linux History page.

This week in Linux history

Five years ago Troll Tech released Qt for the X Window System.

Four years ago Pacific HiTech released TurboLinux 1.0 for the i386 architecture.

Three years ago (September 24, 1998 LWN): The Uniform Driver Interface (UDI) burst on the scene with great fanfare. UDI was a layer intended to make it possible to write device drivers that would work on multiple systems. Surprisingly, Linux was not only to be supported by UDI, but was being actively courted:

However, writing new drivers for the thousands of peripherals on the market is a daunting task. Hence, Project UDI is hoping the Linux community will help... A reference platform will be distibributed as freeware for Linux, and the Project UDI members will be counting on the Linux community to work on device drivers...
-- ZDNet.

The Linux community showed little enthusiasm for the idea of providing device drivers for the convenience of proprietary Unix vendors, and UDI faded away.

The development kernel release remained at 2.1.122. Linus called for a change in how the network drivers worked, because it was all wrong at the time. The changes called for happened, but not until 2.3.43.

IBM finally got around to announcing that its DB2 database would be made available for Linux. Sybase, too, got in on the act with its release of "Adaptive Server Enterprise."

Two years ago (September 23, 1999 LWN): A previously obscure company called LinuxOne released a new distribution (called by some "Red Hat with the serial numbers filed off") then promptly filed for an IPO. Needless to say, this move was not well received. The IPO never happened and LinuxOne has faded back in obscurity.

Corel Linux went into beta test. The event was overshadowed, however, by a rather severe nondisclosure agreement that beta testers were expected to sign. Linux-Mandrake 6.1 was made available for download.

LinuxOne was not the only IPO filing that week; Andover.net also put in for an offering. They had rather more success at it. Linux was hot.

Andover.net paid $1.5 million to acquire Slashdot.org and $367,000 to acquire another Linux/open-source site, Freshmeat.net. Both will receive further cash and stock considerations if the founders, notably Malda and a couple of others, remain with Andover.net for two years. Malda will receive an additional $3.5 million plus stock over the next two years should he remain with Andover.net.
-- ZDNet.

Several months after the IPO was finalized Andover.net was swallowed by VA Linux Systems.

Appwatch.com had just entered its "beta" stage. Appwatch closed August 31, 2001.

One year ago (September 21, 2000 LWN): wrote, "The money is back - sort of." Our examples included Sun's purchase of Cobalt Networks, Caldera Systems' investment in EBIZ, and an investment in Corel, among others. However, since then Cobalt has been happily cranking out SPARC/Solaris systems, EBIZ has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, and Corel has sold its Linux division. This past year has not been good for many companies.

Red Hat has done better than some. The company reported revenues of $18.5   million and a net loss of only $1.9 million for its fiscal second quarter 2000. Red Hat seemed to be well on the way to profitability, but they haven't quite made it yet. (See this week's Commerce page.)

Meanwhile BusinessWeek looked at the prospects of Great Bridge Software.

Great Bridge has zero market share and has yet to release a commercial product. Even tracking how many unofficial PostGres installations are up and running in corporations and universities is difficult since no one sells PostGres yet. But Batten has already seen value where others saw folly. "He has an acute sense of valuation. That's his biggest strength," says Ted Snyder, the dean of UVA's Darden B-school who has worked with Batten on several programs. If past is prologue, then Batten, perhaps more than anyone else, can build a company out of free software. Larry, look out.

And then came the Red Hat Database ...

Cisco claimed to have patented NAT, a "security system for network address translation systems", generally referred to it as "masquerading" on Linux systems. This proved to be a non-event.

The Debian Project announced plans to phase out security support for 2.1 (slink). There was some screaming, but support was phased out and people coped.

The stable kernel release was 2.2.17, but the 2.2.18pre9 prepatch merged in the long-awaited NFS fixes.

Linux job site Mojolin.com was announced. Mojolin is a free, international job site and resume database for the Linux, unix and embedded communities. If you are among those looking for a new job, you might want to check it out.

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol.

LWN Linux Timelines
1998 In Review
1999 In Review
2000 In Review
2001 In Review

Next: Letters