Linus Torvalds
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds; born December 28, 1969) is a Finnish-American software engineer who is the creator and, for a long time, principal developer, of the Linux kernel, which became the kernel for operating systemssuch as GNU and years later Android and Chrome OS. He also created the distributed revision control system git and the diving logging and planning software Subsurface. He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition...
NationalityFinnish
ProfessionEngineer
Date of Birth28 December 1969
CityHelsinki, Finland
CountryFinland
There's innovation in Linux. There are some really good technical features that I'm proud of. There are capabilities in Linux that aren't in other operating systems.
I have an ego the size of a small planet
It just makes it even harder for people to even approach the (open source) side, when they then end up having to worry about public humiliation.
One of the questions I've always hated answering is how do people make money in open source. And I think that Caldera and Red Hat - and there are a number of other Linux companies going public - basically show that yes, you can actually make money in the open-source area.
Turtles are very stable and have been around forever. But they have problems adapting. When humans came along, turtles came under serious threat. Biodiversity is good, and I think it is good in technology as well.
To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
To be honest, the fact that people trust you gives you a lot of power over people. Having another person's trust is more powerful than all other management techniques put together.
Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.
The economics of the security world are all horribly, horribly nasty and are largely based on fear, intimidation and blackmail.
See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.
Fairly cheap home computing was what changed my life.
The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.
I actually think that I'm a rather optimistic and happy person; it's just that I'm not a very positive person, if you see the difference.
I don't expect to go hungry if I decide to leave the University. Resume: Linux looks pretty good in many places.