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Key Contributors

The development of Unix involved several key figures, primarily from Bell Labs, whose work laid the foundation for modern operating systems, including Unix-like systems such as Linux. Their contributions were instrumental in shaping the software landscape.

Here are the key contributors to Unix and their specific contributions:

  • Ken Thompson

    • Started the development of Unix (initially called UNICS, a pun on Multics) in 1969. His desire to make his "Space Game" program run economically drove the initial implementation.
    • He was a researcher at Bell Labs experimenting with operating system designs.
    • He wrote a custom interface for a disk drive on a PDP-7 that evolved into the prototype Unix system.
    • Along with Dennis Ritchie, he rewrote the Unix kernel in C in 1973.
    • He also developed the first version of his B programming language.
    • He received the Turing Award in 1983 for his work on Unix, and was jointly awarded the Japan Prize in 2011. He was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2019 for his invention of Unix.

  • Dennis Ritchie

    • A key figure in Unix's creation alongside Ken Thompson.
    • Wrote the first C compiler [C Language, 151], and was the primary developer of the C programming language.
    • Rewrote the Version 4 Unix kernel in the higher-level C language in 1973 with Ken Thompson [C Language, 151, 169, 230, 320, 325, 391, 401, 434]. This was a "key pioneering approach" that went "contrary to the general notion at the time that an operating system's complexity and sophistication required it to be written in assembly language" [C Language, 169, 230].
    • He introduced the crucial concept of a device file, abstracting hardware devices as files within the file system.
    • He attributed Unix's early success to the "readability, modifiability, and portability of its software that in turn follows from its expression in high-level languages" like C [C Language, 327].
    • He viewed both Linux and BSD Unix operating systems as a "continuation of the basis of the Unix design" and "derivatives of Unix".
    • He received the Turing Award in 1983 for his work on Unix, and was jointly awarded the Japan Prize in 2011. He was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2019 for his invention of Unix.

  • Brian Kernighan

    • He is credited with suggesting the name "Unics" (a pun on Multics), which was later shortened to Unix.
    • Along with Rob Pike, he summarised the Unix philosophy: "the idea that the power of a system comes more from the relationships among programs than from the programs themselves" [Unix Philosophy, 387].

  • Douglas McIlroy (Doug McIlroy)

    • One of the last researchers to leave the Multics project, who decided to redo the work on a smaller scale with Thompson and Ritchie.
    • He ported the TMG compiler-compiler to PDP-7 assembly, creating the first high-level language running on Unix.
    • He is also credited by Dennis Ritchie with the name Unics.

  • Joe Ossanna

    • He was part of the Bell Labs team that developed Unix, having also been involved in the Multics project.

  • Bill Joy

    • While Ken Thompson spent a sabbatical at the University of California at Berkeley, Bill Joy and Chuck Haley wrote the first Berkeley version of Unix, known as BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution).
    • He later co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and created SunOS.

  • Richard Stallman

    • Founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in 1984.
    • Initiated the GNU Project in 1984 with the goal of creating a free (as in freedom) version of the Unix operating system. This was partly in response to AT&T's move towards a more restrictive, proprietary licensing model for Unix.
    • Authored the GNU General Public License (GPL).
    • The GNU Project successfully built a vast number of essential components, including the GNU C Compiler (GCC), the Emacs text editor, and other fundamental tools, which became crucial for the later development of Linux-based systems.
    • He is a prominent advocate for the use of the term "GNU/Linux" to acknowledge the GNU Project's substantial contributions to the full operating system often referred to simply as "Linux".

  • Linus Torvalds

    • Developed the Linux kernel, releasing the first version in 1991.
    • His project was a "reimplementation of Unix from scratch", avoiding the legal issues faced by Unix derivatives that used AT&T's original source code.
    • He initially developed the Linux kernel on the MINIX operating system.
    • He decided to release the Linux kernel under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
    • He serves as the lead maintainer for the Linux kernel.
    • He stated that if the GNU kernel (Hurd) or 386BSD had been available in 1991, he likely would not have created Linux, highlighting the opportune timing for his project.