Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds, born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland, is a software engineer from Finland whose best-known accomplishment is the initiation of the development of the open source operating system Linux, starting in 1991. He remains the lead coordinator of the project and self-styled "benevolent dictator of Planet Linux". Torvalds has remained a prolific contributor to the project, and as of 2006, had written fully 2% of the code in the kernel. He is also noted for initiating the Git project for version control.

Torvalds has a more pragmatic view of the open source model than other prominent developers, including Richard Stallman. Though an advocate of the open source development model, Torvalds insists that he uses the "best tool for the job", and has been known to use certain proprietary software in the past.

Religion

Torvalds rejects God and is an atheist.

Linux

Torvalds is the primary developer of Linux - a free component of the GNU/Linux operating system that in the past was notorious for its difficulty of use to people without an advanced understanding of computers, but in the past decade has made significant progress in becoming easier for non-experts to use. The Ubuntu distribution of GNU/Linux in particular has been praised for its ease of use. Now popular is the Tails Anonymous Secure Operating System which is based on Linux and is just as easy as Ubuntu.

LINUX exists thanks to the proprietary UNIX operating system developed for midrange SYSTEM V AT&T servers. MINIX O/S predated the idea of UNIX-like system on personal computer platforms. Torvalds was an early MINIX enthusiast in the late 1980s.

See also

• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates
• IBM, HP, Dell and Microsoft Windows
• Apple Computer MacOS for Apple Macintosh
• Apple iOS for iPhone-iPod-iPad

External links

• Linus' blog at blogspot.com
• Young, Robert (March 1994). "Interview with Linus, the Author of Linux". Linux Journal (#1). http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2736. 
• Ten years of NODES
• Torvalds interview
• Linus Torvalds: Linux succeeded thanks to selfishness and trust
• Linus Torvalds and His Five Entrepreneurial Lessons

Bibliography

Torvalds, Linus; David Diamond (2001). Just For Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. New York, New York, United States: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-662072-4. 

Further reading

Himanen, Pekka; Linus Torvalds, and Manuel Castells (2001). The Hacker Ethic. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-20550-5.