MINIX inspired a generation of open source hackers and the Linux kernel itself. Later this month, its creator takes the Nerdearla stage, and the livestream is free.
If Linux Torvalds is the father of Linux, then Andrew Tanenbaum is its grandfather. I point this out, because Tanenbaum is scheduled to be interviewed onstage later this month at the Nerdearla open source conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. That’s good news in and of itself, but even better news for those of us who don’t have the bucks to make the roughly 5,000 mile journey from the US, the interview — along with most of the conference — is being livestreamed.
There’s more good news, at least for us English-as-an-only-language speakers: even though Nerdearla is primarily a Spanish-language event, this interview will be conducted in English. Also, whether attending in-person or online, Nerdearla is also free… as in beer as well as in speech.
What’s the Deal about Tanenbaum?
I called Tanenbaum the grandfather of Linux because he’s the person who, back in 1987, created Minix as a Unix clone that could run on affordable 8086-based home computers. Before that, if you wanted to run something like Unix on a PC, you had to run Microsoft’s Xenix, which would set you back about $500 for a single-user license, which would be about $1,800 today.
If you’re a Linux user and the Minix name sounds familiar to you: good. If it doesn’t, you need to hit the books and study you Linux history: Linux was first announced to the world when Linus Torvalds sent this message out out to a mailing list for Minix users:
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-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).
I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and 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 would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them 🙂
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have 🙂
These days, at 81, the American born Tanenbaum is professor emeritus of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he spent most of his career, and he continues to reside in the Netherlands.
Nerdearla: Open Source Conferencing Latinx-Style
Nerdearla is a large and always free annual open source event that started in Buenos Aires, but which now has expanded to include other outlying events in Latin America, all under the Nerdearla name. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it. I hadn’t either until last year when it had its first ever event in Ciudad de Mexico, which is better known as Mexico City stateside. Later this year, the event will expand its boundaries even further when it launches it’s first ever show in Madrid, November 13-25.
At its first ever Mexico-based conference Nerdearla landed something of a scoop when conference founder Ariel Jolo interviewed Automattic’s CEO and WordPress’s co-founder Matt Mullenweg. The timing was great for Nerdearla, since it happened just as the media war Mullenweg had launched against the WordPress-focused WP Engine hosting company a few months earlier was threatening to go nuclear.
In Buenos Aires, Tanenbaum will be interviewed by Nicolás Wolovick, who comes to the table with plenty of tech cred. These days he’s a computer science professor at Argentina’s Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Latin America. In addition, he’s the Director of UNC’s Supercomputing Center and of its Computer Science undergraduate program.
The interview will open the conference at 10 am Saturday September 27 — which means 9 am on the US East Coast. Although livestreaming is free, you do need to register.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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