This year is a special one for me. I first met Linus Torvalds in May 1994, so next year I will have been promoting Linux (and GNU/Linux) for 20 years. I think it is natural that I take this month's column to reflect on what I feel to be the good and the bad of those 20 years.

Some things I am very happy about:

• "Open Source" (which includes Free Software, the *BSDs, and other projects) expanding from something only Unix geeks use to software that is recognized as being good for mission-critical applications and systems. Many people who laughed 20 years ago when I said, "Linux is inevitable," now work on open source projects.
• GNU/Linux progressing from a system that caused a good deal of frustration during installation to being easy to install on modern-day desktops, laptops, and tablets with compatible hardware.
• High-performance computing (HPC) systems, previously known as "Beowulf Systems" (with a bow to Tom Sterling and Don Becker for their work in this area), along with projects like the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP), educational distributions, and many others, helping to make open source a familiar term.
• The development of the LAMP philosophy (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl/Python/PHP) for creating websites and servers.
• The transition of Linux from a 32-bit, single-architecture, single-CPU kernel with no high availability capabilities to a kernel that is 32/64-bit, multiarchitecture, multithreaded SMP with high availability built into its filesystems and failover code. The movement of GNU/Linux to the embedded space and out to the cloud also has been fascinating to watch.
• The evolution of repositories such as SourceForge and Freecode.com, documentation projects, education projects, Local User Groups (LUGs), and groups like the Free Software Foundation and the Linux Foundation.
• The growth of Linux conferences. The early ones were so small, they typically were held at universities, and speakers often stayed in the homes of the conference organizers. Some of these small conferences led to the larger LinuxWorld conferences put on by IDG. Others grew into events like LinuxTag, FOSDEM, FISL, Latinoware, and SCALE, as well as smaller volunteer-driven "festivals" around the world.

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