Risale al 5 ottobre 1991 il post di Linus Torvalds con il quale questo programming genius annunciò di aver sviluppato un piccolo kernel adatto ai PC 386-based. Riporto, di seguito, in versione integrale, tale intervento, cercando di delinearne i tratti più salienti.

Linus inizia con il suscitare l'interesse tra i programmatori che leggeranno il suo intervento: parla circa la possibilità di sviluppare e scrivere il codice dei driver per i propri dispositivi, cita un sistema operativo che è possibile modificare secondo le proprie esigenze e le proprie necessità:

Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote
their own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying
to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you
finding it frustrating when everything works on minix? No more all-
nighters to get a nifty program working? Then this post might be just
for you :-)

La prima parte del post suscita sicuramente una certa curiosità; Linus inizia a spiegare il suo progetto, la sua idea da allora laureando che in realtà sarà, negli anni a venire, parecchio influente nel mondo dell'informatica. Linus afferma di essere al lavoro su un mini-kernel che è giunto ad uno stadio piuttosto stabile. Afferma inoltre di voler rendere disponibile il codice sorgente per distribuirlo largamente trai programmatori. Pare sia la prima volta, nella storia, che un programmatore parla del concetto di "open-source"...:

As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I'm working on a free version of a
minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers.  It has finally reached the stage
where it's even usable (though may not be depending on what you want),
and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution.  It is
just version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already), but I've successfully
run bash/gcc/gnu-make/gnu-sed/compress etc under it.

Sources for this pet project of mine can be found at nic.funet.fi
(128.214.6.100) in the directory /pub/OS/Linux.  The directory also
contains some README-file and a couple of binaries to work under linux
(bash, update and gcc, what more can you ask for :-).  Full kernel
source is provided, as no minix code has been used.  Library sources are
only partially free, so that cannot be distributed currently.  The
system is able to compile "as-is" and has been known to work.  Heh.
Sources to the binaries (bash and gcc) can be found at the same place in
/pub/gnu.

Il neonato progetto di Torvalds è indirizzato essenzialmente ai programmatori più smanettoni, agli hacker interessati al programming world dei sistemi operativi:

ALERT! WARNING! NOTE! These sources still need minix-386 to be compiled
(and gcc-1.40, possibly 1.37.1, haven't tested), and you need minix to
set it up if you want to run it, so it is not yet a standalone system
for those of you without minix. I'm working on it. You also need to be
something of a hacker to set it up (?), so for those hoping for an
alternative to minix-386, please ignore me. It is currently meant for
hackers interested in operating systems and 386's with access to minix.

The system needs an AT-compatible harddisk (IDE is fine) and EGA/VGA. If
you are still interested, please ftp the README/RELNOTES, and/or mail me
for additional info.

Linus sottolinea nuovamente la possibilità di personalizzare a proprio piacimento il sistema, in quanto si tratta di una struttura flessibile e, soprattutto, open source....

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?".  Hurd will be
out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got
minix.  This is a program for hackers by a hacker.  I've enjouyed doing
it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for
their own needs.  It is still small enough to understand, use and
modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.

Il post si conclude con una richiesta di collaborazione da parte di potenziali utenti interessati a scrivere driver e/o utility per l'ambiente ideato da Linus.

I'm also interested in hearing from anybody who has written any of the
utilities/library functions for minix. If your efforts are freely
distributable (under copyright or even public domain), I'd like to hear
from you, so I can add them to the system. I'm using Earl Chews estdio
right now (thanks for a nice and working system Earl), and similar works
will be very wellcome. Your (C)'s will of course be left intact. Drop me
a line if you are willing to let me use your code.

                Linus

PS. to PHIL NELSON! I'm unable to get through to you, and keep getting
"forward error - strawberry unknown domain" or something.

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