/*From*: Ian A Murdock (imurdock@shell.portal.com)
*Date*: August 16, 1993 6:09:59 PST
*Newsgroups*: comp.os.linux.development
*Subject*: New release under development; suggestions requested/
/Fellow Linuxers,/
/This is just to announce the imminent completion of a brand-new
Linux release, which I’m calling the Debian Linux Release. This is
a release that I have put together basically from scratch; in
other words, I didn’t simply make some changes to SLS and call it
a new release. I was inspired to put together this release after
running SLS and generally being dissatisfied with much of it, and
after much altering of SLS I decided that it would be easier to
start from scratch. The base system is now virtually complete
(though I’m still looking around to make sure that I grabbed the
most recent sources for everything), and I’d like to get some
feedback before I add the “fancy” stuff./
/(Full post available here
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=CBusDD.MIK%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2065nix.portal.com>.)/
/When I posted this message a decade ago, Linux was in use by maybe a
few tens of thousands of people around the world, and most of those
people were either running their own homebrew Linux system or Peter
MacDonald’s SLS, the Softlanding Linux System. Red Hat Software was
but a twinkle in Marc Ewing’s eye./
/I had been using Linux for several months, since January of 1993. Not
long after, I was hooked. Like most other early Linux enthusiasts,
what hooked me was not Linux itself, but rather the community that had
formed around it./
/It’s difficult to remember, because open source and open development
projects are commonplace now, but in 1993, what I saw happening seemed
completely illogical. How could people without any master plan, from
different parts of the world, speaking different languages and not
getting paid, come together to build something as complex as an
operating system? The fascinating thing was that /it worked/./