Talk:Linus Torvalds

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Contents 1 Infoboxes 2 Birthplace 3 Tove Torvalds 4 Finnish-American? 5 "Tørvalds" 6 Robert Hooke 7 Pronunciation 8 Opinion on GPL3/DRM 9 Linux and GNU/Linux naming reverts 10 Quote attributed to Linus 11 Vox?? 12 Taking a back seat 13 Linus Torvalds Image 14 Article is a disaster! 15 Cool Man?

[edit] Infoboxes

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[edit] Birthplace

Uh, Olso is the capital of NORWAY. So was he born in Oslo (Norway), or Stockholm (Sweden) ? For an encyclopedist, the author of this article could do a little wee bit of research, or even know these things... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.17.235.137 (talk • contribs) 20:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC).

Thank you for pointing that out. The version you read was the result of a misinformation edit done by 84.182.122.8. I have reverted it back to the correct form. Capi 20:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Why does it now say he was born in both Helsinki, Finland, and Tulsk, Ireland? Atamasama 15:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Also the above information was caused by vandalism, that was already reverted. Cate | _Talk 16:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tove Torvalds

Why have the link to Tove_Torvalds under his pic redirect to his page? Shouldn't there either be a Tove Torvalds stub (she's a semi-notable karate champion, according to this article), or no Tove link at all?

Yea, is this done by a Finn that believes that the wife is an appendage to the husband? If so, then this setup works... However, since she is an accomplished person herself and this is an encyclopedia there should not a redundant link back to her husband's webpage when you open her page. I will try to open a new page so that future Wikipedians can edit or build her page. Stevenmitchell 19:52, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually why is there a need to link to her page? Why is she relevant to Wikipedia beside being Linus wife... for being a "semi-notable karate champion"? Who is interested in her bio? AdrianTM 20:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

---

Can someone confirm that Tove Torvalds has been Karate champion six times? It was in the article with a question mark besides it; I took it out because it didn't seem appropriate as it was

Don't worry, I confirmed it myself (see www.netshooter.com/linux/halloween4.html)

--Lezek

It's in his autobiography, which is loaned to my mentor right now... but the coauthor mentions that Tove is disappointed in Linus' attitude towards fitness. Pakaran 01:44, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Finnish-American?

He is listed as Finnish-American on the Finnish-American article. Does he have a US passport? It only says he stayed in the US a couple of years, and that wouldn't make him American, would it?

[edit] "Tørvalds"

Can we have more detail on this being the "original orthography"? I saw three weblinks that use it, though Linus never uses it himself - David Gerard 15:45, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If it is not Torvalds then it must be Törvalds and not Tørvalds. 'ø' is used in danish and norwegian language but in swedish uses 'ö' for the same sound. But if you search for 'Törvalds' site:.se and 'Törvalds' site:.fi you will not get any results so I guess no-one in Sweden nor Finland has the surname 'Törvalds'. TraxPlayer 21:48, 20 Jul 2004 GMT+1

The "Tørvalds" in the web searches is in fact Linus. Presumably that's why the person who added it thought it was the original orthography - David Gerard 12:11, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That sounds like a joke...

Nø realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge–her brother-in-law–an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands øf an Oslo dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"....

[edit] Robert Hooke

Does the diversion on Robert Hooke belong here? Ejrrjs | What? 22:55, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)???

[edit] Pronunciation

Would: IPA: /linus tʼorvaldz/ this be OK?

Waiting for some expert, I would rather propose: [ 'lɪ:nʉs: 'tʰʊ:rˌval:ʦ ]

--Johan Magnus 10:07, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion on GPL3/DRM

"Linus's opinion on GPL3 was interpreted as supporting the use of digital rights management[3]."
I think his opinion is more like this: he is for code freedom while the part of GPL3 that he reject is about machine freedom (not code) and that is irrelevant to Linus. He is not necessarily for DRM, he says that people will choose if they want a DRM machine or not, but he actaully says that he's only interested to have code modifications available. It's a little bit something else than "Linux is for DRM" as that line in article reads. AdrianTM 19:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linux and GNU/Linux naming reverts

I have recently made these edits to the article, which were fully reverted 10 minutes later by AKMask without any discussion here whatsoever, under the reasoning of "rv, theres an entire article on this issue, and it is unrelated to Torvalds personally". I am well aware that there is an article on this issue. I fail to see how this is could be unrelated to Torvalds since he is obviously one of the key parties directly concerned in the matter, and has voiced his opinion on it numerous times. The Richard Stallman article, for example, has an even lengthier discussion of the GNU/Linux vs Linux naming issue. Furthermore, this article already mentioned it in the first place; I simply expanded on what is already said, to make it, in my opinion, both more readable than it was ("However some," ??) and provide more useful information for the reader, on what was already mentioned. I did not expand to make it 5 paragraphs worth of controversy, I added 2 or 3 sentences that leave the situation (for both sides) more accurately described. This article already reads semi-POV enough, with hardly any mention of any criticisms toward Linus; no mention in the article text of his tendency and subsequent reputation for flaming and personal attacks, of what happened in the whole Linux is obsolete debate, of those who disagree with the way he runs the Linux kernel and claim he is power hungry, smoothing of his comments regarding GNOME (which were basically him flaming them on their own mailing list)... Capi 15:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Torvalds has commented on the issue a few times, Stallman makes it a central focus of his public speaking being the main reason the article's cover it differently. If you wish, after the 'or GNU/Linux' mention include a link to the main article, but this is not the place for a large digression on the topic. Id go so far to say that Stallman's page isn't either, but perhaps more on WHY he feels that should be the name, since he's so vocal about it. As for the power-hungry part, feel free to add that in with a source, I didn't notice that part :) -M^ask 02:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed anything about the GNU/Linux controversy from the article anyway.--Chealer 04:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quote attributed to Linus

I'm not very familiar with this article, but I thought I'd mention in my reading I came across this quote which is attributed to Linus by Michael J. Jordan of the Linux Online Staff:

In these days when Ubuntu is hogging the spotlight (though much of this attention is truly merited), it's good to know that you can count on a distribution from the days when "men were men and they wrote their own device drivers" as Linus Torvalds once said.

For the complete context and source, see the Linux Online review of Slackware 11[1]. I thought it was a good quote; whether anyone thinks it is appropriate to include somewhere in the article or not is up to those who are familiar with this article. BigNate37_(T) 20:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vox??

Uh, not a regular editor or anything -- but what's with 'Linus Benedict "VoX" Torvalds'? It was introduced a few days ago, and the article has been edited since and no one removed it, so I'm just wondering -- what is the "VoX" for? There's no explanation, nor do any of the pages named Vox have any sort of reference to this. Just, y'know, wondering. Janux 19:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's just some funny vandalism. Personally I think all the Wikipedia should be "sprotected" so only registered user should be allowed edit, this way would eliminate 99.999% of the vandalism that we see. If that's agains Wikipedia's principle at least articles like Linux, Linux Torvalds, Microsoft that attract vandal funboism should be permanently protected against anonymous editors. But that's me and I don't make the policy here, drop me a line of if you want my support (vote) in this issue. -- AdrianTM 19:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taking a back seat

I could be wrong, but I thought I read recently that Linus was going to start taking a back seat in terms of Linux kernel development, and that he was going to hand over authority and responsibility to his underlings. Is that right, or have I picked that up wrongly? Adw2000 16:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linus Torvalds Image

Why are there now two images of Linus Torvalds with the same name (but one with a .jpg ext. and the other .jpeg) which are identical apart from being horizontally flipped?

One is used on this page and the other on the Linux page.

- The one used in this article. - The one used in the Linux article (the original image).

User:Some_Person seems to have created the 2nd image, with the description: "flipped so he faces toward article". I don't know if this is justified or not, but surely both this article and the Linux article should be using the same image. It is quite odd seeing him flip from facing one direction to facing the other when going between the two articles. Canderra 20:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed.--Chealer 02:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article is a disaster!

Considering who this guy is the article should be a featured article. Where are the Linux zealots to polish it up and fill it with tons of content? C'mon! Fill her up.-BiancaOfHell 13:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cool Man?

Does anybody have a screenshot or copy of the game Cool Man? An image of it would look good in his article.