By 1991, the GNU project created a lot of the tools. The much awaited Gnu C compiler was available by then, but there was still no operating system. Even MINIX had to be licensed.(Later, in April 2000, Tanenbaum released Minix under the BSD License.) Work was going the GNU kernel HURD, but that was not supposed to come out within a few years.
In August 25, 1991 the historic post was sent to the MINIX news group by Linus .....
1991年8月25日，Linus发给MINIX新闻组的历史性邮件（如下）：
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix? 题目：你们想从MINIX中得到什么？
Summary: small poll for my new operating system 概要：对我的新操作系统的小拉票
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki 单位：赫尔辛基大学
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, andI'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 protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's
all I have :-(.
