Getting to where it is today was no small feat for the little project that Linus Torvalds announced to the world on August 25, 1991, with this newsgroup post:

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Today Linux powers so much of the world's infrastructure that it's honestly hard to think of an industry that hasn't been significantly shaped by its progress. From banks to healthcare giants to airlines, to almost all of the most popular websites in use today, and perhaps even the phone in your pocket, the world runs on Linux.

So today, twenty-seven years in, we're asking our readers: What was the most important moment in Linux's history? We've pulled out some highlights in the poll above, but of course we can't include everything, so if your top moment wasn't included, be sure to let us know what it was in the comments below.