Z:gnu-www-ja-google-engineering-talk--812f50-Fortunately, we didn't have to/en

Fortunately, we didn't have to wait for that, because in 1991, Linus Torvalds, a Finnish college student, developed his own kernel, using the traditional monolithic design, and he got it to barely run in less than a year. Initially, Linux --that's what this kernel's name was-- was not free, but in 1992 he re-released it under the GNU General Public License and at that point it was free software. And so it was possible, by combining Linux and the GNU system, to make a complete free operating system. And thus, the goal we had set out for, that I had announced in 1983, had been reached: there was, for the first time, a complete modern operating system for modern computers, and it was possible to get a modern computer and run it without betraying the rest of humanity, without being subjugated. You could do this by installing the GNU + Linux operating system.