More specifically, it most likely refers to this discussion:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/browse_frm/thre...

Linus was a kid in 1992, and got scolded by one of the greatest icons of the field. That could still sting 20 years later.

I always thought Linus gave better than he got in that argument, myself. He was pretty brutal to Minix in a couple of places. BTW. love the reference to "BSD detox" somewhere in that thread, it always gives me a chuckle.

Yeah GP seems to imply Linus lost that debate. Quite the contrary, Tannenbaum titled his post "LINUX is obsolete", so the argument was fundamentally about whether he was right about his title, or whether he was wrong - the last two decades of history have pretty clearly proven him wrong.

[Regarding Linux's x86 base] What is going to happen is that they will gradually take over from the 80x86 line. ... I think it is a gross error to design an OS for any specific architecture, since that is not going to be around all that long.

Ouch, history hurts.

Yes, it refers to MINIX.

However, it is a betrayal of UNIX's history.

More likely HURD

No, it was tanenbaum and minix.