How a crisis over managing Linux versions led to the foundational software behind GitHub

Learn about the Linux contingency plan for when its creator retires or passes away

Authored 34 years after the software was coded by Linus Torvalds, the plan dictates that if the maintainers of the code's repository are unable to facilitate a transition to Torvalds' successor, an Organizer will chair a meeting with the invitees of the most recently concluded Maintainers Summit, which will consider options for the ongoing management of the repository.

Visualize the growth of the Linux kernel source code, which surpassed 40 million lines in 2025

Version 0.01 of the program authored by Linus Torvalds in 1991 spanned approximately 10,000 lines of code and has progressively grown to accommodate the management of an increasing number of hardware and software components. The kernel grows by an estimated 400,000 lines of code every two months.

A conversation about open-source software with Linus Torvalds, who invented Linux

Originally written as part of a personal project, Torvalds acknowledges that Linux's growth came from opening it up to a community of users who could each work on different components, including those that were not his strength, such as the user interface. He also admits to being an engineer, rather than a visionary, relating more to Thomas Edison than Nikola Tesla.

The history of Linux, from the UNIX wars to the hundreds of Linux operating systems of today

Amid conflicts over standardizing and controlling various versions of UNIX—an operating system developed at Bell Labs and owned by AT&T—the GNU Project was announced to create a free, open-source OS. Originally designed for Intel's 386 CPU under the name "Freax," Linus Torvalds Linux kernel would be combined with GNU Project software and customized by growing numbers of developers into many OSes, each tailored to specific computing needs.

The history of the Linux Foundation, a technology consortium supporting open-source projects

The nonprofit, founded in 2000 by IBM, HP, Intel, and others as the Open Source Development Labs, was established to build the infrastructure needed to scale with the growing development of Linux. Upon merging with the Free Standards Group in 2007, it rebranded as the Linux Foundation and, as of 2024, provides a "neutral home for code and collaboration" to almost 1,000 projects.

Explaining how open source systems like Linux can be secure, despite their public source code

While no computer system is immune to all cyberattacks and malware, the transparency of open-source technology means many thousands of developers can review and oversee the underlying code powering the software on an ongoing basis. This increases the likelihood of catching and patching vulnerabilities more quickly than smaller groups of cybercriminals looking to exploit them.

How the GNU General Public License ensures software remains free and open

Rather than copyright, the free software license is based on the principles of copyleft—users are allowed to use, modify, and distribute software without charge, provided that any derivative works remain free. The license was introduced in 1989 by Richard Stallman, who founded the Free Software Foundation to promote the accessibility of software.

An overview of a dozen distros—operating systems running on the Linux kernel

While Ubuntu and Linux Mint are among the most beginner-friendly general-use operating systems, Arch Linux is a more advanced option, with a dedicated Arch Wiki available for support. Many Linux distros are optimized for specific use cases, such as Kali Linux for security work and Pop!_OS for high-performance gaming and software development.

The software for wikis—user-editable websites—was launched in 1995

Computer programmer Ward Cunningham created the WikiWikiWeb online application based on an offline system that helped track how ideas moved through his company. The application enabled users to collaborate and edit website content through a web browser, as well as link pages without requiring a structured navigation scheme.

The evolution of X, from startup to Musk-owned giant, reflects rapid tech shifts

Twitter began in 2006 as a side project and grew into a major global platform, widely used for news, activism, and political discourse. Despite mainstream success, it faced ongoing management turmoil, business struggles, and rising concerns over misinformation and user safety.

Read an oral history of the Y2K panic

This oral history brings together programmers, engineers, and officials who first identified the date flaw and then spent years alerting the public to the danger and racing to repair millions of lines of code.

Microsoft paid $50k for the foundation of the OS they licensed to IBM

Rather than write MS-DOS from scratch, Bill Gates purchased the full rights to QDOS—Quick and Dirty Operating System—from Seattle Computer Products only weeks before IBM's PC hit the market. The IBM deal allowed Microsoft to license its OS to other manufacturers, ensuring it was not dependent on IBM's long-term success.

How Apple's GarageBand changed music

Apple's preinstalled, easy-to-use software GarageBand was first released in 2004. Since then, it's changed the way artists write and record music. The program's accessibility and ease of use have allowed beginner artists to experiment and find their voice, while major artists like Rihanna, Grimes, and Bjork have used the program to record hit singles and perform live. This article from the Red Bull Music Academy explains how the basic interface reshaped an industry.

Google began as a Stanford University dorm room project

Launched in 1998, Google revolutionized search engines with its clean design and PageRank algorithm. As of 2025, Google has about 90% of the search market share but faces new challenges from AI-powered competitors and regulatory scrutiny.

Grace Hopper warned against prioritizing hardware purchases in future computing

Foreseeing the rising volume of data and the increasing demand for its processing and access, she advocated that organizations first map the total flow of information they require and then choose infrastructure to support it, rather than wastefully spending on the fastest computing technology and forcing software to compensate for unnecessary hardware or incorrect data.

Why Metallica sued Napster—and enraged music fans

When Lars Ulrich, the drummer for metal legends Metallica, began his press campaign against Napster, an early filesharing software, he said he was fighting for artists. Listeners weren't convinced, especially because data suggested that filesharing services helped record sales rather than hinder them. This history of the ordeal contextualizes more modern problems in the music business, especially considering streaming services like Spotify were initially seen as a solution to illegal filesharing.

Ledgers—what are they good for?

It might seem strange that a ledger—a dull and practical document associated mainly with accounting—would be described as a revolutionary technology. But the blockchain matters because ledgers matter. Read (or listen to) this 14 minute breakdown on why ledgers matter.

About 70% of the Human Genome Project's reference genome came from one donor

Volunteers who donated blood to the Human Genome Project consented to using no more than 10% of their DNA, raising questions about the project's legality. Listen to how pressure from a private competitor may have driven officials to ignore ethical standards.

How a garage became the birthplace of Silicon Valley

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard are well known for founding the company Hewlett-Packard. But before their success, Hewlett and Packard sat in a garage and created their first product together. Today, that garage is deemed the "birthplace of Silicon Valley" and is marked as a historical site.

The concept for Palantir's key software came from PayPal's anti-fraud protocol

PayPal, which, like Palantir, was cofounded by Peter Thiel, developed the initial framework for Palantir's data-mining service to prevent financial crime. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Thiel realized the software could also enable government agencies to connect data and prevent similar terrorist attacks from occurring in the future.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

The pandemic saw Zoom overtake Skype as the default video conferencing tool

When millions of people needed to become work-from-home experts overnight, ease of use for video conferencing tools became especially important. Zoom's success was partly because the company made it easier to join meetings than Skype did—with Zoom, users only needed a URL to join a meeting, rather than downloading a fully separate app as they did on Skype. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto began working on the underlying bitcoin code and blockchain

Widely credited as inventing the currency, Nakamoto abruptly disappeared from the digital world—no one has confirmed his identity, or whether he was even a single individual.

The game 'Counter-Strike' was developed in a dorm room

College student Minh Le designed the game through "modding," effectively building on the code of a preexisting game, the game "Half-Life" in his spare time.

Understanding how Claude Code and other AI coding agents function

Under human oversight, a supervising large language model interprets user tasks and delegates work to subordinate LLMs, which can generate code, fix bugs, and run tests, often most effectively for proofs of concept. Incremental backups and versioning are crucial when using such agents, which can lose details during their work as a result of compressing context history to work around memory limitations.

A historical tree of technological advancement

Starting from stone tools millions of years ago and culminating in today's cutting-edge tech, this thorough genealogy lays out how humanity has progressed in its use of tools over thousands of years. See descriptions, links to further info, and how each tech fits in the larger tree.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.