Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds

Torvalds at LinuxCon Europe 2014
Born Linus Benedict Torvalds
December 28, 1969
Helsinki,[1]
Residence Dunthorpe, Oregon, United States[2]
Nationality Finnish, American (naturalized in 2010)[3]
Alma mater University of Helsinki (M.S.)[4]
Occupation Software engineer
Employer Linux Foundation
Known for Linux kernel, Git
Spouse(s) Tove Torvalds
Children 3
Parent(s) Nils Torvalds (father)
Anna Torvalds (mother)[5]
Relatives Ole Torvalds (grandfather)
Website
torvalds-family.blogspot.com (outdated)

Linus Benedict Torvalds (/ˈlaɪnəsˈtɔrvɔːldz/;[6] Swedish: [ˈliːn.ɵs ˈtuːr.valds]; born December 28, 1969) is a Finnish American[3][7] software engineer, who was the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel that became the most popular kernel for operating systems. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel and now acts as the project's coordinator. He also created the revision control system Git. He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a new open source operating system for computers leading to the widely used Linux kernel".[8] He is also the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award.[9]

Biography

Early years

Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland. He is the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds,[10] and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. Both of his parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority. Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize–winning American 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".[11]

Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki between 1988 and 1996, graduating with a master's degree in computer science from NODES research group.[12] His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the Finnish Army, selecting the 11-month officer training program to fulfill the mandatory military service of Finland. In the army he held the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of a ballistic calculation officer.[13] 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.[14] His M.Sc. thesis was titled Linux: A Portable Operating System.[15]

His interest in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20.[16] 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.[17][18] He is known to have written a Pac-Man clone named Cool Man. On January 5, 1991[19] he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC[20] before receiving his MINIX copy, which in turn enabled him to begin work on Linux. The first prototypes of Linux were publicly released later that year.[11][21] Version 1.0 was released on March 14, 1994.[22]

Later years

After a visit to Transmeta in late 1996,[5] Torvalds accepted a position at the company in California, where he would work from February 1997 until 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 Dunthorpe, Oregon,[2] 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. In 1999 he was named by the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the world's top 100 innovators under age 35.[23]

In 1999, Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation.[24] That same year both companies went public and Torvalds's share value temporarily shot up to roughly $20 million.[25][26]

His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux,[27] which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux kernel.[28]

Although Torvalds believes "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.[29] He was criticized for his use and alleged advocacy of the proprietary BitKeeper software for version control in the Linux kernel. Torvalds subsequently wrote a free-software replacement for BitKeeper called Git.

In 2008, Torvalds stated that he used the Fedora distribution of Linux because it had fairly good support for the PowerPC processor architecture, which he had favoured at the time.[30] His usage of Fedora was confirmed in a later 2012 interview.[31]

Currently, the Linux Foundation sponsors Torvalds so he can work full-time on improving Linux.[32]

The Linus/Linux connection

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 download, named Torvalds's directory linux.[33]

Authority and trademark

As of 2006, approximately two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds himself.[26] Because thousands have contributed to the Linux kernel, this percentage is one of the largest contributions to it. However, he stated in 2012 that his own personal contribution is mostly merging code written by others, with little programming.[34] Torvalds retains the highest authority to decide which new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel.[35]

Torvalds owns the "Linux" trademark and monitors the use of it,[36] chiefly through the Linux Mark Institute.

Personal life

Torvalds in 2002

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.[37] Linus was running introductory computer laboratory exercises for students and instructed the course attendees to send him an e-mail as a test, to which Tove responded with an e-mail asking for a date.[11] Tove and Linus were later married and have three daughters, Patricia Miranda (born 1996), Daniela Yolanda (born 1998), and Celeste Amanda (born 2000),[38] two of whom were born in the United States.[7] The Linux kernel's reboot system call accepts their dates of birth (written in hexadecimal) as magic values.[39][40]

Torvalds describes himself as "completely a-religious—atheist", adding that "I find that people seem to think religion brings morals and appreciation of nature. I actually think it detracts from both. It gives people the excuse to say, 'Oh, nature was just created,' and so the act of creation is seen to be something miraculous. I appreciate the fact that, 'Wow, it's incredible that something like this could have happened in the first place.'" He later added that while in Europe religion is mostly a personal issue, in America it has become very politicized. When discussing the issue of church and state separation, Torvalds also said, "Yeah, it's kind of ironic that in many European countries, there is actually a kind of legal binding between the state and the state religion."[41]

In 2010, Torvalds became a United States citizen and registered to vote in the United States. He is unaffiliated with any U.S. political party, saying, "I have way too much personal pride to want to be associated with any of them, quite frankly."[7]

Recognition

Awards

IEEE Computer Pioneer Award

On April 23, 2014, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers named Torvalds as the 2014 recipient of the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award. The Computer Pioneer Award was established in 1981 by the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors to recognize and honor the vision of those whose efforts resulted in the creation and continued vitality of the computer industry. The award is presented to outstanding individuals whose main contribution to the concepts and development of the computer field was made at least 15 years earlier.[42]

Internet Hall of Fame

On April 23, 2012 at Internet Society's Global INET conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Torvalds was one of the inaugural inductees into the Internet Hall of Fame, one of ten in the Innovators category and thirty-three overall inductees.[43]

Millennium Technology Prize

On April 20, 2012, Torvalds was declared one of two winners of that year's Millennium Technology Prize,[44] along with Shinya Yamanaka.[45] The honor is widely described as technology's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Academics

In 1997, Torvalds received his Master degree (Laudatur Grade) from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. Two years later he received honorary doctor status at Stockholm University, and in 2000 he received the same honor from his alma mater.[46] University of Helsinki has named an auditorium after Torvalds and his computer is on display at the Department of Computer Science.

In August 2005, Torvalds received the Vollum Award from Reed College.[47]

Industry

In 1998, Torvalds received an EFF Pioneer Award.[48] In 2000 he was awarded the Lovelace Medal from the British Computer Society.[49] In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Well-Being with Richard Stallman and Ken Sakamura. In 2008, he was inducted into the Hall of Fellows of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, "for the creation of the Linux kernel and the management of open source development of the widely used Linux operating system."[50][51] He was awarded the C&C Prize by the NEC Corporation in 2010 for "contributions to the advancement of the information technology industry, education, research, and the improvement of our lives".[52]

Media

Time magazine has recognized Torvalds multiple times:

InfoWorld presented him with the 2000 Award for Industry Achievement.[55] In 2005 Torvalds appeared as one of "the best managers" in a survey by BusinessWeek.[56] In 2006, Business 2.0 magazine named him one of "10 people who don't matter" because the growth of Linux has shrunk Torvalds's individual impact.[57]

In summer 2004, viewers of YLE (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) placed Torvalds 16th in the network's 100 Greatest Finns. In 2010, as part of a series called The Britannica Guide to the World's Most Influential People, Torvalds was listed among The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time (ISBN 9781615300037).[58]

Space

In 1996, the asteroid 9793 Torvalds was named after him. In 2003, the naming of an asteroid moon (Linus) was motivated in part by the fact that the discoverer was an enthusiastic Linux user.

Patents

As of March 2011, Torvalds has been granted 35 patents worldwide (application and granted patents).[59]

Controversy

Desktop environment criticism

In 2005, on the official GNOME developmental mailing lists, Torvalds encouraged users to switch to K Desktop Environment 3 rather than use GNOME.[60][61] However, Torvalds thought KDE Plasma Desktop 4.0 was a "disaster" because of its lack of maturity, and so he had switched to GNOME by 2009.[62] Dissatisfied with his perceived loss of productivity, he switched to Xfce after the GNOME 3 release, making another harsh post against GNOME.[63] After improved KDE versions were made, he switched back to KDE Plasma Desktop 4[64] but soon switched back to GNOME 3 stating that "it has been getting less painful"[65] with Frippery and gnome-tweak-tool which he suggested to be merged into GNOME.[66]

Possible NSA approach

In September 2013, Torvalds was asked at the LinuxCon conference whether he had been approached by a US government agency to add backdoors into Linux; he responded with a verbal "no" while nodding his head "yes".[67] He later stated that it was obviously a joke.[68] However, Linus's father Nils states:

When my oldest son [Linus Torvalds] was asked the same question: “Has he been approached by the NSA about backdoors?” he said “No”, but at the same time he nodded. Then he was sort of in the legal free. He had given the right answer, [but] everybody understood that the NSA had approached him.
—Nils Torvalds, LIBE Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens - 11th Hearing, 11 November 2013.[67][69][70]

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Finland
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rogoway, Mike (June 7, 2005). "Linus Torvalds, Incognito Inventor". The Oregonian. Retrieved July 8, 2014. A sort of anti-celebrity, he is plainly ambivalent about fame and content to stay nestled at home in a tony cluster of million-dollar houses atop the densely forested hills of the Dunthorpe neighborhood.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Citizen Linus". LWN.net. September 13, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Linus Torvalds 2008 Fellow".
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Linux Online – Linus Torvalds Bio". Linux.org. Archived from the original on June 26, 2004. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  6. ↑ "Linux Pronunciation".
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Rogoway, Mike (September 14, 2010). "Linus Torvalds, already an Oregonian, now a U.S. citizen". The Oregonian. Retrieved September 16, 2010.
  8. ↑ "Technology Academy Finland – Stem cell pioneer and open source software engineer are 2012 Millennium Technology Prize laureates". Technologyacademy.fi. April 19, 2012. Archived from the original on January 17, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Computer-Pioneer-Award".
  10. ↑ Torvalds
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Moody, Glyn (2002). Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution. Perseus Books Group. p. 336. ISBN 0-7382-0670-9.
  12. ↑ "NODES research group". Cs.helsinki.fi. October 16, 2008. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  13. ↑ Torvalds, p. 29
  14. ↑ Torvalds, p. 53
  15. ↑ "Staff". The Linux Foundation. Retrieved April 24, 2012.
  16. ↑ Torvalds, pp. 6–7
  17. ↑ Torvalds, pp. 41–46
  18. ↑ Torvalds, Linus: GMOVE. Program listing. In MikroBitti 11/1986, p. 63.
  19. ↑ "Linux News". Abc.se. January 5, 1991. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  20. ↑ Torvalds, p. 60
  21. ↑ Torvalds, Linus Benedict (August 25, 1991). "What would you like to see most in minix?". Newsgroup: comp.os.minix. Usenet: 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI. Retrieved 2015-04-29. I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
  22. ↑ "Kernel 1.0 Source Code Release". Retrieved October 27, 2008.
  23. ↑ "1999 Young Innovators Under 35: Linus Torvalds, 29". Technology Review. 1999. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Gumbel, Peter (November 13, 2006). "Linus Torvalds". Time. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  25. ↑ Rivlin, Gary. "Leader of the Free World". Wired. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 "Linus Torvalds: A Very Brief and Completely Unauthorized Biography". The Linux Information Project. Bellevue Linux Users Group. January 24, 2006. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
  27. ↑ Torvalds, Linus (May 9, 1996). "Re: Linux Logo prototype.".
  28. ↑ Why a Penguin? at the Wayback Machine (archived January 13, 2007). linux.org
  29. ↑ Linus Torvalds at Google, on Git on YouTube, 9:50–10:00
  30. ↑ Morris, Richard (July 17, 2008). "Linus Torvalds, Geek of the Week". Retrieved August 3, 2009.
  31. ↑ "Interview with Linus Torvalds from Linux Format 163". TuxRadar. Linux Format. November 29, 2012. Retrieved February 3, 2014.
  32. ↑ "About Us". The Linux Foundation. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
  33. ↑ Moody, Glen. "The Greatest OS That (Never) Was". Wired. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  34. ↑ "An Interview With Linus Torvalds". Tech Crunch. April 19, 2012. Retrieved April 22, 2012.
  35. ↑ Ingo, Henrik (2005), Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source (PDF) (Online version), Ingram, pp. 42–45.
  36. ↑ "Linus Explains Linux Trademark Issues". Slashdot.org. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  37. ↑ Torvalds, p. 123
  38. ↑ "Linus Torvalds's bio". Nndb.com. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  39. ↑ Torvalds, Linus. "index : kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git". Linux kernel. Retrieved May 30, 2013.
  40. ↑ "Debian's reboot(2) man page". Retrieved August 16, 2011.
  41. ↑ Richardson, Marjorie (November 1, 1999). "Interview: Linus Torvalds". Linux Journal. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  42. ↑ "Linus Torvalds Named Recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award". Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. April 23, 2014. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  43. ↑ "2012 Internet Hall of Fame inductees 2012". Internet Hall of Fame. Retrieved April 24, 2012.
  44. ↑ "Linus Torvalds wins the tech. equivalent of a Nobel Prize: the Millennium Technology Prize.". ZDNet. April 19, 2012. Retrieved April 24, 2012.
  45. ↑ "Yamanaka wins Finnish award for iPS work : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)". Yomiuri Shimbun. Japan. April 21, 2012. Archived from the original on April 22, 2012.
  46. ↑ Torvalds, p. 28
  47. ↑ "Linux creator Linus Torvalds honored with Reed College's Vollum Award". Web.reed.edu. August 24, 2005. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  48. ↑ "Torvalds, Stallman, Simons Win 1998 Pioneer Awards". W2.eff.org. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  49. ↑ "Talking to Torvalds". British Computer Society. September 2007.
  50. ↑ "The Computer History Museum Announces the 2008 Fellow Awards Recipients" (Press release). Computer History Museum. June 18, 2008. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
  51. ↑ "Fellow Awards: Linus Torvalds". Computer History Museum. October 21, 2008. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
  52. ↑ von Eitzen, Chris (October 21, 2010). "Linus Torvalds awarded 2010 C&C Prize". The H (Heinz Heise). Retrieved October 22, 2010.
  53. ↑ "The 2010 Time 100". Time. Archived from the original on January 3, 2007. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
  54. ↑ Lessig, Lawrence (April 26, 2004). "Linus Torvalds: The Free-Software Champion". Time magazine. Retrieved October 3, 2006.
  55. ↑ Nicholas Petreley. This year's Award for Industry Achievement goes to the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds. InfoWorld. January 17, 2000. Page 82.
  56. ↑ "The Best & Worst Managers Of The Year". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. January 10, 2005. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  57. ↑ Business 2.0 Magazine staff (June 22, 2006). "10 people who don't matter". CNN. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  58. ↑ "Linus Torvalds named one of the 100 most influential inventors". The H. February 4, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
  59. ↑ "Patent Portfolio of Linus Torvalds". directoryinventor.com. Archived from the original on May 8, 2011.
  60. ↑ "Printing dialog and GNOME". Mail.gnome.org. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  61. ↑ "Linus versus GNOME". Desktoplinux.com. February 23, 2007. Retrieved March 13, 2010.
  62. ↑ Gedda, Rodney (January 22, 2009). "Q&A: Linux founder Linus Torvalds talks about open-source identity". Computerworld. Retrieved April 24, 2012. it was a half-baked release (...) I'll revisit it when I reinstall the next machine
  63. ↑ "Linus Torvalds Ditches GNOME 3 For Xfce - Slashdot". Linux.slashdot.org. August 3, 2011. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
  64. ↑ Torvalds, Linus. "Linus Torvalds' post (02/11/2012)". Retrieved November 2, 2012.
  65. ↑ "Torvalds: I want to be nice, and curse less, but it's just not in me". The Register. November 7, 2012. Retrieved January 2, 2013.
  66. ↑ Heath, Nick (March 4, 2013). "Linus Torvalds switches back to Gnome 3.x desktop". ZDNet. Retrieved June 19, 2013.
  67. ↑ 67.0 67.1 Bhati, Monika (November 21, 2013). "Did NSA contact Linus for a backdoor in Linux? [updated]". Retrieved February 26, 2015.
  68. ↑ Franceschi-Bicchierai, http://www.muktware.com/2013/11/nsa-wanted-backdoor-linux-confirms-linus-father/16632. Muktware. Missing or empty |title= (help);
  69. ↑ "Linus Torvalds was approached by NSA for backdoor in Linux - Nils Torvalds (father of Linus)". November 20, 2013. Retrieved November 3, 2014.
  70. ↑ "EP LIBE #EPinquiry 11 November 2013". November 20, 2013. Retrieved November 3, 2014.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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Preceded by
Michael Grätzel		 Millennium Technology Prize winner
2012 		Succeeded by
Stuart Parkin