[TUHS] Is there a good, even definitive, list of reimplementations of the Unix kernel? What would good cut-off criteria be?

[Theodore Tso via TUHS]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2026 at 10:32:14AM +1000, steve jenkin via TUHS wrote:
> 
> We know that implementing a V7 kernel API was a masters project for
> Linus, taking ~3 years to crank it out, presumably his sole work as
> a thesis requirement.

If you meant Linus Torvalds, that's not correct.

Linus announced Linux on comp.os.minux on August 26, 1991, and and in
it, he claimed that it had been "brewing since April."  The first
snapshot of his Linux, 0.01, was released on ftp.funet.fi on September
17, 1991.  In 1991, Linux would have been roughly in his third year,
since he started at the University of Helsink in 1988, but then in
1989 he took a year off to fulfill his mandatory military service, so
he would have started his Sophomore year in the fall of 1990, so Linux
0.01 which would have full V7 kernel functionality at the beginning of
his Junior year in September, 1992.

Linus did use Linux as the basis of his Masters thesis[1], but that
thesis was submitted on January 31, 1997, and that was long after
Linux had accumulated a large number of contributors, with Linux
2.0.28 being released in January 14, 1997, and in 1996 was when Linux
2.0 was released with SMP support, and when Larry Ewing created the
Tux penguin mascot.

[1] https://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/kutvonen/index_files/linus.pdf

Cheers,

						- Ted