Linus Benedict Torvalds

born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finland-Swedish

software engineer best known for having initiated the development of
the Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux
kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator.

Linus Torvalds

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Linus Torvalds

Torvalds in 2002[1]

Born December 28, 1969 (1969-12-28) (age 39)

Helsinki, Finland

Residence Portland, Oregon

Nationality Finnish

Occupation Software engineer

Employer Linux Foundation

Known for Linux kernel, Git

Spouse(s) Tove Torvalds

Parents Nils Torvalds (father)

Anna Torvalds (mother)[2]

Relatives Ole Torvalds (grandfather)

Website

www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/

Linus Benedict Torvalds (Sv-Linus_Torvalds2.ogg pronunciation

(help·info); [ˈliːnɵs ˈtuːrvalds]; born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki,
Finland) is a Finland-Swedish software engineer best known for having
initiated the development of the Linux kernel. He later became the
chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's
coordinator.

Contents

[hide]

* 1 Biography

o 1.1 Early years

o 1.2 Later years

* 2 The Linus/Linux connection

* 3 Authority on Linux

* 4 Linux trademark

* 5 Recognition

* 6 See also

* 7 Notes

* 8 References

* 9 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Linus Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland, the son of journalists Anna
and Nils Torvalds,[3] and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. His family
belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (5.5%) of Finland's
population. Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the American
Nobel Prize-winning chemist, although in the book Rebel Code: Linux
and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, "I think I
was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character," noting
that this makes him half "Nobel-prize-winning chemist" and half
"blanket-carrying cartoon character".[4] Both of his parents were
campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s.

Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996,

graduating with a master's degree in computer science. His M.Sc.
thesis was titled Linux: A Portable Operating System. His academic
career was interrupted after completing his first year of study when he
joined the Finnish Army, selecting the 11-month officer training
program, thus fulfilling the mandatory military service of Finland. In the
army he held the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of fire
controller, calculating positions of guns, targets, and trajectories,
finally telling the guns where to shoot.[5] In 1990, he resumed his
university studies, and was exposed to UNIX for the first time, in the
form of a DEC MicroVAX running ULTRIX.[6]

His interest in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20.[7] After the

VIC-20 he purchased a Sinclair QL which he modified extensively,
especially its operating system. He programmed an assembly language
and a text editor for the QL, as well as a few games.[8] He is known to
have written a Pac-Man clone named Cool Man. On January 2, 1991 he
purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC[9] and spent a month playing
the game Prince of Persia before receiving his MINIX copy which in turn
enabled him to begin his work on Linux.[4]

[edit] Later years

Linus Torvalds is married to Tove Torvalds (née Monni) — a six-time
Finnish national karate champion — whom he first met in the autumn
of 1993.[10] Torvalds was running introductory computer laboratory
exercises for students and instructed the course attendants to send
him an e-mail as a test, to which Tove responded with an e-mail asking
for a date.[4] Tove and Linus were later married and have three
daughters, Patricia, Daniela, and Celeste.[11]

After a visit to Transmeta in late 1996,[2] he accepted a position at the

company in California, where he would work from February 1997
through June 2003. He then moved to the Open Source Development
Labs, which has since merged with the Free Standards Group to
become the Linux Foundation, under whose auspices he continues to
work. In June 2004, Torvalds and his family moved to Portland, Oregon
to be closer to the OSDL's Beaverton, Oregon-based headquarters.

From 1997 to 1999 he was involved in 86open helping to choose the

standard binary format for Linux and Unix.

Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based

software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his
creation.[12] In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds' net
worth shot up to roughly $20 million.[13][14]

His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux, which has been

widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux
kernel.

Although Torvalds believes that "open source is the only right way to
do software", he also has said that he uses the "best tool for the job",
even if that includes proprietary software.[15] He has been criticized
for his use and alleged advocacy of the proprietary BitKeeper software
for version control in the Linux kernel. However, Torvalds has since
written a free-software replacement for BitKeeper called Git. Torvalds
has commented on official GNOME developmental mailing lists that, in
terms of desktop environments, he encourages users to switch to
KDE.[16][17] However, Torvalds thought KDE 4.0 was a "disaster"
because of its lack of maturity, so he switched temporarily to
GNOME.[18]

[edit] The Linus/Linux connection

Main article: History of Linux

Initially Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a

combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a
Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP
server where the kernel was first hosted for downloading, named
Torvalds' directory linux.

[edit] Authority on Linux

About 2% of the Linux kernel as of 2006 was written by Torvalds

himself.[14] Since Linux has had thousands of contributors, such a
percentage represents a significant personal contribution to the overall
amount of code. Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on what new
code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel.[19]

[edit] Linux trademark

Torvalds owns the "Linux" trademark, and monitors[20] use of it chiefly

through the Linux Mark Institute.

[edit] Recognition
 * In 1996 Asteroid 9793 Torvalds was named after Linus Torvalds.

* In 1998 he received an EFF Pioneer Award.[21]

* In 1999 he received honorary doctor status at Stockholm

University.

* The 1999 novel Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson features

several characters who use "Finux", a Unix-like operating system
developed in Finland.

* In 2000 he received honorary doctor status at University of

Helsinki.[22]

* In 2000 he was awarded the Lovelace Medal.[23]

* In the Time magazine's Person of the Century Poll, Torvalds was

voted at #17 at the poll's close in 2000.[24]

* In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Well-

Being with Richard Stallman and Ken Sakamura.

* In 2004, he was named one of the most influential people in the

world by the Time magazine article "Linus Torvalds: The Free-Software
Champion" by Lawrence Lessig, Time Magazine, posted Monday, Apr.
26, 2004, retrieved October 3, 2006.

* In the search for the 100 Greatest Finns of all time, voted in the
summer of 2004, Torvalds placed 16th.

* In 2005 he appeared as one of "the best managers" in a survey by

BusinessWeek.[25]

* In August 2005, Torvalds received the Vollum Award from Reed

College.[26]

* In 2006, Business 2.0 magazine named him one of "10 people who
don't matter" because the growth of Linux has shrunk Torvalds'
individual impact.[27]

* In 2006, Time Magazine—Europe Edition named him one of the

revolutionary heroes of the past 60 years.[28]

* In 2008, he was inducted into the Hall of Fellows of the Computer

History Museum in Mountain View, California.[29][30]
[edit] See also

* Linus's Law

* Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate

* Revolution OS

* Just for Fun

[edit] Notes

1. ^ McMillan, Robert (December 2002). "The Great Dictator · Linus

Torvalds: The Benevolent, Brilliant Keeper of the Kernel". FEATURES
(Linux Magazine). Archived from the original on 2003-03-04.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030304160629/http://www.linux-
mag.com/2002-12/linus_01.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-09.

2. ^ a b Linux Online - Linus Torvalds Bio

3. ^ TORVALDS, 2001

4. ^ a b c Moody, Glyn (2002). Rebel Code: Linux and the Open

Source Revolution. Perseus Books Group. pp. 336. ISBN 0738206709.
http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/perseus/book_detail_redirect.do?i
mprintCid=BA&isbn=0738206709.

5. ^ Torvalds, 2001, page 29

6. ^ Torvalds, 2001, page 53

7. ^ TORVALDS, 2001, pages 6-7

8. ^ TORVALDS, 2001, pages 41-46

9. ^ Torvalds, 2001, page 60

10. ^ TORVALDS, 2001, page 123

 11. ^ Torvalds' bio on nndb.com

12. ^ Gumbel, Peter (2006). Torvalds "Linus Torvalds: By giving away

his software, the Finnish programmer earned a place in history"]. 60
Years of Heros. TIME.
http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2006/torvalds.html Torvalds].
Retrieved on 2008-06-14.

13. ^ Rivlin, Gary. "Leader of the Free World". Wired.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/linus_pr.html. Retrieved on
2008-06-14.

14. ^ a b Linus Torvalds: A Very Brief and Completely Unauthorized

Biography

15. ^ Linus Torvalds at Google, on Git, 9:50-10:00

16. ^ Printing dialog and GNOME

17. ^ Linus versus GNOME

18. ^ "it was a half-baked release (...) I'll revisit it when I reinstall the
next machine"Q&A: Linux founder Linus Torvalds talks about open-
source identity

19. ^ Henrik Ingo. Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source. Ingram,
2005. 42-45. Online version

20. ^ Linus Explains Linux Trademark Issues

21. ^ Torvalds, Stallman, Simons Win 1998 Pioneer Awards

22. ^ Torvalds, 2001, page 28

23. ^ Talking to Torvalds, British Computer Society, September 2007.

24. ^ The Person of the Century Poll Results

25. ^ The Best & Worst Managers Of The Year

26. ^ Linux creator Linus Torvalds honored with Reed College's Vollum
Award

27. ^ 10 people who don't matter

28. ^ Linus Torvalds

 29. ^ "The Computer History Museum Announces the 2008 Fellow
Awards Recipients". 2008-06-18.
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/080618/0407491.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-
20.

30. ^ "Fellow Awards: Linus Benedict Torvalds". 2008-10-21.

http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/index.php?id=123.
Retrieved on 2008-10-23.

[edit] References

* Himanen, Pekka; Linus Torvalds, and Manuel Castells (2001). The

Hacker Ethic. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-20550-5.

* 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.

* TORVALDS, Linus; David Diamond (2001). Just for Fun: The Story of
an Accidental Revolutionary. London, UK: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-
662073-2.

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Linus Torvalds

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Linus

Torvalds

* Linus' blog

* Torvalds's home page (quite outdated)

* Leader of the Free World - How Linus Torvalds became the

benevolent dictator of Planet Linux, the biggest collaborative project in
history (Wired News)
 * The birth of Tux: Why Linus Torvalds chose a penguin as the Linux
mascot

* What would you like to see most in minix?, thread begun by the
first Usenet post by Linus Torvalds referencing his new project, followed
by the advice and requests for features he received in those early
weeks when Linux was first being planned

* Linus Torvalds and His Five Entrepreneurial Lessons

* Linux Journal - 1 March 1994

* Linux Journal - 1 November 1999

* Fresh Air radio interview - 4 June 2001

* Linus' mailing list activity